


All The Small Things

by BloodSugarBaby



Series: All The Small Things [1]
Category: Blink-182
Genre: Blink-182 - Freeform, Comedy, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-26
Updated: 2012-05-26
Packaged: 2017-11-06 01:23:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 41,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/413167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BloodSugarBaby/pseuds/BloodSugarBaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Tom DeLonge fanfiction) Skye Roberts and Travis Barker have been best friends with Autumn Taper since middle school, and as soon as high school is let out, they move off to California, where they can hopefully find a new member for the girls' band, and a band within itself for Travis. Little do they know who they'll meet when they skip unpacking to go to the bar that first night...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. All The Small Things

I poked my head out from my (brand-new) room and gave my best friend a fake-pissed-off look. “What the fuck do you want?” I asked him.

He laughed at me (not nice). “You have to help me with these boxes.”

I groaned. “But boxes are STUPID.”

“Your mom is stupid.”

“My mom let me move in with you, retard,” I joked with a smile. “So you shouldn’t be calling her stupid.”

“Just come help me with the boxes,” he said with a grin.

I ran over to him and snatched the box he had in his hand. His mouth gaped and he pretended to be mad. “Hey!” he fake-pouted.

“I’m helping you with the boxes,” I laughed.

He just rolled his eyes.

Okay, I know what you’re thinking. It’s probably something along the lines of, Aww! You love this mysterious guy! How sweet! First of all, fuck no. Second of all, we have names, you know, so take the time to learn them. Jesus.

So…well, my name is Skylar. Skylar Roberts. But people call me Skye. And the idiot (kidding) I’m moving in with is my bestest friend ever, Travis Barker.

And yes, you fucking perves, we’re sleeping in different beds. Get your minds out of the gutters!

Well, here’s some background information about me and Trav if you could really care about this at all. We both grew up hating our hometown of Columbus, Ohio. In fact, we thought it sucked and was the most boring place there was in the history of the universe (that’s because it’s true, people). So, we moved here to San Diego, California, after my other best friend in the whole wide world, Autumn Taper, moved here last year.

Me and Autumn were (were) in a band called Spintcer 8, but since we left our guitarist, Jackie Owens, back in Ohio, we sorta needed a new one, so Autumn ran here to start looking. And Travis, well…he needed a whole band altogether.

Me and Trav are both drummers. Actually, he taught me how to play. He’s a trillion times better than me, but I’ve promised him that I’d use the other half of my time helping him set up equipment and shit for his band, if that got him a drumming job anywhere.

So, yeah…and now here we are, in pretty San Diego, unpacking all of our shit into our nice little loft, instead of doing fun things.

So interesting and fun, right?

“When are we gonna look for jobs and…shit?” I asked him.

“After we unpack. Tomorrow. Jesus,” he laughed.

I flicked him which only made him laugh harder.

I ran upstairs with the box and opened it up. Shit, it was all of Travis’s underwear.

Gross.

I closed the box slowly and picked it up again as if it was some sort of nuclear bomb, holding it as far away from me as possible, and walking carefully across the hall to where his room was supposed to be (it was empty right now) and dropped it randomly.

When I ran back downstairs, Travis had like a trillion more boxes just sitting around randomly. I swear to God that room was empty two minutes ago. Dark magic? Well, it was Travis Barker; you never know.

“This is all the non-music shit,” he informed me, looking around.

“Well, let’s go get our drums then,” I said. “Where are they?”

“Outside.”

I groaned. “Really?”

“I didn’t wanna risk jacking them up on the way up. What if I had busted one of them? Preferably yours? Then what would you have done?”

I sighed. I hated it when he was right. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s just go.”

We ran out of our loft and into the hallway and down the stairs; the elevator would be too slow. We’d take it back up, when we had all 40 million boxes full of drum sets and such.

Once we reached the lobby, the blonde, annoying, gum-popping chick behind the desk, who had checked us in, and also whose face was caked in makeup, glanced up at us from some magazine she had been reading. “Hey, can you hold the elevator?” asked Travis as we headed towards the door.

She sighed and nodded, leaving her desk and walking over to the elevator. I didn’t see what else she did since we were already outside.

“Alright, let’s do this,” I said in a random accent I cannot describe and/or recognize. Travis laughed as we approached the moving truck, which was still parked up front. The mover guys were carefully unloading each of the final boxes from the back of the truck, all of which were marked “fragile.” We all worked together to get all fourteen boxes into the elevator Blondie was holding open for us, and finally, after like fifteen minutes of unloading and moving, we had gotten everything into the open elevator. We thanked the movers and each pitched in fifty bucks for them and their efforts, and then, finally, we stepped inside the elevator.

“Thanks,” I said with the most honest smile I could muster for Blondie (which wasn’t very good, let me tell ya).

Travis choked down a laugh as she just nodded and let the door go, rolling her eyes as she turned away, obviously thinking we couldn’t see her (or not, you take your pick). But…I could. And…I did.

Fail.

“I don’t think that chick likes us,” Travis stated with a smirk as the elevator started upward (we were the second-to-top floor, which, by the way, had been a lot of stairs to run down about twenty minutes ago).

“I think she’s intimidated by us or something,” I smirked. “It’s probably your Mohawk.”

“Look who’s talking, Smurfette.” He grinned at his stupid nickname for me, which had been my nickname ever since I dyed my hair. Which is total shit because Smurfette is a blonde. I always tell Travis that but he just laughs it off. Jackass.

Travis started calling me Smurfette back in high school, when I dyed my hair blue with black highlights. When the dye faded, though, it looked terrible. So when it was time to re-dye my hair, I decided it was time for a(nother) change. My hair became purple, and it’s been like that ever since. But the nickname, which now makes no sense, obviously, still stuck. And I’ve been unable to shake it off, even now.

Anyway, we arrived at our floor and I held the elevator open as Travis unloaded all fourteen boxes again (he was stronger than me). It took us fifteen more minutes until everything was finally inside our loft.

What? Drums are some heavy equipment, man.

“Oh, shit,” I said as he closed the apartment door behind us when we started looking around.

“What?” asked Travis.

“Where’s Red?”

He looked around. “I set her down…” he said. “There.” He pointed to the corner of the room, where he had set her on top of the one of the tables, which happened to be sitting in this room temporarily.

“Thank Jesus,” I muttered.

“Thank Travis,” he corrected me. He was so arrogant sometimes.

Oh yeah. Red is my guitar. I play guitar, too, along with drums and stuff. Sweet, huh?

Haha. Kidding. I’m probably not as amazing and/or annoying in real life as you are probably expecting me to be as you are reading this right now.

“God, I don’t wanna unpack,” I whined. “Can we, like…just sleep on our mattresses on the floor or something and then start putting away all this other shit tomorrow or something?”

“But it’s five right now,” Travis pointed out. “In the afternoon.”

I shrugged. “So? Let’s just, I don’t know…go to a bar or something.” I grinned at my idea. “Find our way around this town.”

He laughed. “I can’t say no to beer.”

“Unfortunately,” I added for him, still grinning. “Let’s go! We’ll never know who we’ll find there.”

I was never more correct about anything in my entire life, that sentence.


	2. Romeo & Rebecca

“Wow,” said Travis as he opened the door for me. “Some bar.”

We walked in and I was in absolutely shock. This was not a bar. That was impossible. It was more like a party. The lights were dimmed, but there were colors everywhere, illuminating the place. People were everywhere….talking, dancing, playing pool or poker, doing shots…it was absolutely amazing.

“This is the coolest bar I’ve ever seen…ever,” Travis announced.

“‘Bar’ is an understatement, my friend,” I said, looking around even more to see most of the people here looked like us; NOFX t-shirts, Mohawks, dyed hair, and a thing against the government (although that wasn’t really me and Travis…well, the government part wasn’t, at least). “It’s a party.”

“I’ll get us some beers,” said Travis. “I’ll find you.”

I nodded agreement and watched as he stalked off in the direction of the bar.

I started walking around, looking at everything, everywhere. There was a live DJ, a dance floor, and everywhere I looked there were people with drinks in their hand. Some were casually drinking, others were tipsy, and there were chicks that were totally wasted, grinding on dudes and dancing on tables (fail). There were also random guys taking shots and laughing really loud. Along the walls, kinda pushed to the side to make room for the dancers, were a bunch of high tables where some people were sitting, drinking, talking, making out…the whole shebang.

I was so entranced with the place, soaking everything in as I glanced around at the people and stuff, that I was retarded enough to not notice someone walking in front of me until it was too late. “Shit!” we said together as I accidentally collided with this guy.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” I said, immediately stepping back.

“It’s okay,” he said with a slight giggle. “My beer is fine. No harm done.”

I smiled and studied his face for the first time. “Hi,” I said. He had brown hair with long bangs that swept over half his face. His eyes were a chocolate brown, and they were bright and happy. And his smile was definitely something within itself.

“Hi,” he said, still grinning, as he studied me too. “Nice hair.”

“Thanks,” I said with a laugh. “I’m Skye.”

“Shouldn’t your hair be blue if your name’s Skye?” he asked me.

I shrugged. “It used to be blue. I like purple better.”

“Sweet. I’m Tom, and I like people with blue, purple, green, or orange hair. Any color hair, actually.” I laughed. “Buy you a drink?” he asked me.

Fuck, I thought. Travis was getting me a drink. What to do? What to do…

“Sure,” I said. I mean, two drinks…that would make me one happy camper.

We headed over to the bar, and we got there before like four insanely drunk guys could hit on me, thank God.

“Anything you want,” he said as we sat down at the table.

I smiled at him. “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll have a beer,” I told the bartender.

“Ha, so she drinks beer,” he giggled as he ordered one also. “Smooth.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I take my alcohol…very seriously?”

“I don’t,” Tom shrugged. “I just drink whatever’s lying around.”

“Fuck yeah,” I grinned. “That deserves a high-five.”

We high-fived each other and I laughed again. “You from around here?” he asked me.

I shook my head. “Haha! No. I moved here just a few hours ago, actually…I’m from Ohio.”

“Long way,” he said. “It can’t be as bad as this town is.”

I laughed. “Shit no,” I said. “Columbus sucked. This place is amazing.”

“Whatever makes you stay here longer.” I laughed at his logic. “I can show you around if you want?”

“Really?” I asked. “That’d be amazing. My friend and I would love you if you did that for us.”

“Sweet,” said Tom. “Well…I play in a band. Blink-182. But we’re kinda on hold because our drummer quit to go to college.”

He used air quotes and I giggled. Suddenly, realization hit me. I grinned. “I know you guys! You wrote that song Dammit didn’t you?”

I knew I had hit his ego right there. “Yeah, we did, actually,” he said.

“My friend is fucking obsessed with that song!” I laughed. “I can’t believe you guys made that.”

“Looks like we’re finally starting to get noticed,” said Tom with a grin. “Hold on. My other bandmate is somewhere…” He looked around the faces of the people until he seemed to recognize someone. “HOPPUS!” he suddenly yelled.

Some guy from across the way looked up. His brown hair was naturally spiky, and he had blue eyes that seemed to just be asking for trouble. “You’ve been warned,” Tom told me. “He is a pedo, a creeper, a joker and a bassist all in one. COME HERE!” he yelled to this “Hoppus” character.

This guy rolled his eyes, said something to these ladies he was with and then waltzed over. “Wassup?” he slurred. He seemed to be more than a little drunk.

“He also loves Vodka,” Tom informed me with a smirk.

“I can see that,” I said slowly, taking another swig of my beer.”

“Thomas. My mannn,” said the guy, holding up a drunken hand. Tom slowly high-fived it. “Who’s your friend?” he asked, looking me up and down.

“Skye,” said Tom. “A random person I almost ran over in a mid dash to find you. I need a hug.” He said that last sentence like a little kid and opened up his arms to this guy, who immediately hugged him in return. I laughed. These guys were CRAZY.

“This is Mark,” said Tom after letting go.

“HOPPUS!!” Mark yelled really loud. “My name…is Mark Hoppus. The PORCUPINE!! I go clubbing every single night. New York, LA, Paris…Tokyo…you name it!”

“Wow,” I said slowly with a laugh. “That’s…cool.”

“Don’t be intimidated by him,” said Tom with a smirk. “He’s weird. And to top it all off, he’s drunk, too.

“Don’t worry, I’m not,” I laughed. “I’m in a band, too. You learn everything you need to know about them in the first, like, month.”

“Exactly,” he smiled, rolling his eyes. Mark was giving Tom the puppy dog eyes and seemed to be glancing over at those girls he was just with every two seconds. Tom noticed this and pushed him away. “Go tiger,” he giggled.

I laughed. “I think I should meet him when he’s not drunk,” I said.

“Yeahhhh,” he said slowly with a smile. “Alcohol isn’t the greatest first impression.” I nodded agreement. “So. What instrument do you play?”

I laughed at the sudden subject change. “Drums,” I said.

“Well, we need a drummer,” Tom laughed. “Can we steal you?”

I laughed again. “I don’t know. Maybe,” I said. “My friend, though…he taught me how to play, and he’s a billion times better than me. You should see him play sometime,” I added, taking the last swig of my beer.

And just in time, too. “Jesus fucking Christ, I finally found you,” said Travis as he walked up to our group. Then he noticed Tom, the random person I was sitting with. “Hi,” he said, slowly and unsurely.

“Hi there, random person I’ve never seen before,” he replied with a childish grin.

“Yeah, okay,” I laughed after about ten seconds of an awkward silence. “Gimme that.” I stole one of the beers from Travis. “Travis, this is Tom. He’s looking for a drummer. Tom, this is Travis. He’s an amazing drummer. Now talk business or something.”

I flicked him, but had a smile on my face when I did it. “Don’t you even TRY beating me up, girlfriend,” he said in a girlly voice.

He laughed and flicked me back. “Stop it.”

“WOW,” said Tom with a smirk. “Looks like you’ve been friends for a LONG time.”

“Too long,” me and Travis said at once, smiling at each other. We always said that when someone commented about how we’d been friends for like a decade.

“So…are you guys dating, or…” Tom asked slowly.

“HELL NO,” we both said at once. We both started cracking up, but I continued. “We’re just friends.”

Tom glanced at me. “Should I call Mark back over?” he asked me.

“Another drunk first impression, huh?” I smirked. “NICE.”

“Oh please,” said Travis. “I’m around your friends all the time. I think I know more about drunk first impressions then anyone here does.”

I gave Trav a look and glanced back over at Tom. “Sorry,” I laughed. “You’ll have to excuse his retardedness. But yeah. Call him over.” But when I casted my glance to where he was three seconds ago, I just saw a bunch of random people, and no Mark people. “Where’d he go?” I asked dumbly.

Tom started scanning the crowd. “Right there…oh shit,” he said with a giggle.

I followed Tom’s gaze and my mouth dropped open. “Oh God,” I said. “There’s bathroom stalls for a reason, you know.”

“Well, that’s a drunk Mark Hoppus for ya,” said Tom.

“Who the fuck are you people talking abou – oh God! Gross!” We had interrupted Travis’s question by pointing toward Mark across the way, making out with a girl.

“Your friend is something,” I said, nodding before casting my gaze back down to a nicer object – my beer.

“Well, you know,” Tom shrugged, doing the same. “First impressions while drunk and all.”

“YEAHHH…” I said slowly.

“Hey Skye…?” Travis suddenly said slowly, breaking the silence between all three of us.

“Hey pedophile…?” I asked, mimicking my best friend’s tone with a smirk. “Why are you still staring at those people?”

“Dude, that’s Autumn,” Travis told me.

“HA!” I busted up laughing. “Yeah right.”

“No dude. Seriously. Look,” said Travis, pointing out where Mark was.

“Holy motherfucker, it is,” I said, my mouth dropping open as I risked a glance over at Mark and his “friend.” “I think she’s wasted.”

“Oh please,” Travis scoffed. “That’s shot. Look at her. She’s DEFINITELY wasted.”

“Well, you never know with her,” I sighed. “She’d probably do that if she was sober.”

“No she wouldn’t,” said Travis.

“Yeah, she would.”

“No, she wouldn’t.”

“Yeah, she would.”

“WAIT A SECOND,” said Tom, stopping our “argument” from escalating/becoming any more annoying than it probably already was. He looked at me. “You know Autumn Taper?”

I nodded, pointing to Travis. “She used to go to our school. And she’s in my band.”

“Wait,” said Tom, processing all of this. “You’re in Sphincter 8?”

I smirked and nodded. “Small world,” I joked.

“Wow, it’s all making sense now,” said Tom with a laugh. “You guys are the band looking for the guitarist, right?”

“Yeah,” I said. “And singer.”

“Okay, NOW that we’ve gotten that obvious that Summer plays in a band with THAT chick,” said Travis, nodding his head disgustedly in Autumn and Mark’s direction. “What are we gonna do about them?”

“Yeah, does he have any STDs or anything?” I asked (and quite seriously at that).

Tom just laughed. “I’m supposed to KNOW that shit?”

“Yeah, you are,” I joked. “You’re in a band with him, remember?”

“So?” asked Tom with a laugh.

“Whatever. Who’s gonna break it up?” asked Travis.

All at once, no one a second too late or too soon, we all said, “NOT IT.”

“Fuck,” I said. “Desperate measures.”

“Rock, paper, scissors?” asked Tom.

“No,” I sighed. “I’ll do it. You two will probably fuck it up anyway,” I added with a smirk, turning on the heels of my black and silver Converse and heading into dangerous, disturbing territory.

Let the emotional scarring begin.

I tapped Autumn on the shoulder. “Yo, Taper,” I said.

She eventually let go at my voice. Oh, gross…her lipstick was all over Mark’s face.

“HOLY SHIT!!!” she suddenly screamed, letting go of Mark for a second to jump on top of me. Oh yes. She was drunk. “YOU’RE FUCKING HERE!!! YOU ARE HERRRRRE!!”

“HI!” I yelled back with a laugh. Mark wiped all the lipstick of his face, continuing the glance at us.

When Autumn finally let go of me, Mark said, “So…WAIT!! I KNOW YOU!!” Realization flashed across his face and I laughed.

“Hi,” I said.

“How do you guys know each other?” asked Autumn, confused.

“I met him like two minutes ago,” I laughed.

“How do you guys know each other?” asked Mark.

“We’ve been friends for a LONG time,” I informed him, patting Autumn on the shoulder.

He nodded. “That’s nice.”

“Okay, well,” I sighed, glancing over at Tom and Travis, who were now talking again, not paying attention to us over here anymore. “I just came over to say hi. And that me and Travis are in the process of moving in.”

“Mohawk dude?” Mark interrupted.

“Yeah,” I laughed, turning back to Autumn. “Also, if you’re gonna fuck each other, do it in private.”

They both laughed (Autumn would do that; Mark seems like the kind of person who would probably do that too) and nodded, and Mark grabbed Autumn’s hand and pulled her away into the crowd, my best friend giggling hysterically.

Somewhat relieved that they were going somewhere in private, I walked back over to the bar where Tom and Travis were sitting. I approached them just quickly enough to see them exchange pieces of paper with each other. “What’s up?” I asked, sitting on an open stool next to them.

Tom shrugged. I glanced at Travis. “I might get to be the drummer of their band,” Trav told me like it was nothing.

I grinned and gave my best friend a hug. “You found a job!” I joked.

“I found a job for you, too,” said Travis with a smirk.

I sat back, confused. “To what?”

Travis glanced at Tom, so Tom started talking. “We sorta need an amp person,” he informed me. “Our old one walked out on us with Scott. And Travis said you were good at working the amps, so…”

I smiled. “I’d do that,” I said. “That’s fine. Thanks, Travie,” I said, giving him another hug.

Travis laughed. “You’re…welcome?” he asked. Then his phone buzzed, and Trav pulled it out of his pocket, checking his screen. “Shit, I gotta take this,” he mumbled. “Be right back,” he told us, and sprinted away to hopefully a quieter place.

“So you’re coming to the first practice, right?” asked Tom.

I laughed and nodded. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

“Yay! Our first groupie!” said Tom, jumping up and down excitedly.

“Groupie?” I joked. “I thought I was your amp guy.”

“You’re both!” said Tom.

I laughed. A few minutes later, Travis came back up to us. “Sorry about that,” he said, rolling his eyes. He turned back to Tom. “So, next practice is…?”

“Saturday,” said Tom, nodding eagerly. “And she said she’d come,” he added, pointing accusingly at me.

“That I did,” I laughed. “I’ll be there. Thanks Tom,” I said.

And so the story of me and Blink-182 somewhat begins....


	3. Carousel

"So....you SURE you know where we're going?" I asked Travis for the fifth time since we had gotten in the car that Saturday.

"Yes, Skye," said Travis, rolling his eyes.

"We're lost," I said anyway.

"No, we aren't."

"I don't even think we're in Kansas anymore!" I said, throwing up my arms in the air in mock confusion.

"We were never in Kansas," said Travis.

"Well, we probably are now." I rolled my eyes at him.

He sighed, glancing back at the road. "LOOK, SKYE. A SIGN."

"Is that the street name Tom gave us?" I asked.

"You tell me."

"Oh. Right." I grabbed the piece of paper I had tossed on the dashboard that Tom had given us at the bar that night and unfolded it, checking the street name. "Yep. This is it."

"What house?"

"I'll tell you."

We kept driving for a minute when suddenly I heard some music coming from one of the houses. I smirked. "I don't even think I need to check the house number to know it's THAT one." I pointed to the house where the music was coming from. It was a pretty normal-looking house; white with black shutters. Bushes in the front, lawn neatly trimmed, nice little mailbox. There was a small black car parked out front, and then there was a huge, old, used-looking white can parked next to it. It took up just about all the parking space around the house, so Travis pulled into an empty space from the house across from us and I hoped we wouldn't get chewed out for parking there.

Me and Travis got out of the car and walked up to the front door, ringing the doorbell and waiting for a bit. We were greeted by a nice-looking lady with short, messy brown hair and Tom's eyes. She smiled at us and wiped her hands on the dish towel she was carrying. "Hello," she said with a smile. "Thomas said he was expecting visitors. You two seem to fit the description."

We laughed politely. "My name is Travis," my friend stepped up first, shaking her hand. "This is my friend Skye."

"If your name is Skye, shouldn't your hair be blue?" she asked me, actually confused.

I laughed a little. "It used to be blue. I like to change it up every now and then."

She smiled at me. "Oh, well, I'm sorry," she said.

"It's okay," I said politely. "I get that a lot."

"And on that note," she said. "Well, then, Skye and Travis, please come in." She opened the door wider and we walked into her house.

"I have some food out if any of you guys get hungry," she told us, pointing towards the kitchen. "I'll be in there if you need anything, okay?"

"Okay. Thank you, Mrs. DeLonge," I said politely.

"You're welcome, my dear," she smiled.

"Umm, are Tom and Mark in the garage?"

She nodded. "Yes. Just through here..." She led us through the kitchen and to a door next to the refrigerator. "Have a good practice!"

"Thank you," we called again before opening the garage door.

It was awesome in there. There were posters of amazing bands everywhere, from Green Day (one of my new favorite bands) to the Ramones, Bad Religion, and AC/DC. In the back was a drum set and to the side a few amps sat. Even more interesting was a short girl with perfectly styled brown hair and brown eyes sitting on a milk crate in front of Tom and Mark. She spotted us first and eyed us suspiciously.

Mark and Tom only would've noticed us if she had done that. They immediately stopped playing and turned around. "Oh, hey!" said Mark randomly, smiling lopsidedly at us. "What's up?"

We laughed. I like him better sober, I thought to myself. "Not much," I said. "We almost got LOST" -- I fake-glared at Travis -- "but other than that, life's good."

"Explains why you're late," Tom laughed, taking off his guitar.

"Yeah. Sorry about that," Travis apologized.

"Not a big deal," Mark reassured him. "He's late all the fucking time." He pointed accusingly towards Tom, who grabbed another milk crate, like the girl was sitting on, and placing it next to her.

"But it's his house," I giggled.

"Hey, it takes time to look this good," Tom smirked, pointing to himself to prove his point.

I laughed. "Sure it does."

"Tommy," said the girl suddenly, standing up to kiss his lips. "Are you gonna introduce me to these people?" She glanced over at me and Travis; we exchanged looks with each other.

"Oh yeah," he said. "Okay, this is Skye and Travis. Skye and Travis, this is Phoebe, my girlfriend."

You know how sometimes during sitcom TV shows when the main characters are introduced to the girlfriends, that the show makes it sound like its saying, "Myyyyyyyy girrrrrlllllllllfrrrrriennnnnnnnnnd"? Or is that just me? Does anybody actually know what I'm talking about?

I just mean, it was a pretty dramatic moment right there.

"If your name's Skye, shouldn't your hair be blue?" she asked me, snapping me from my thoughts. Her voice was kind of teeny-bopper-ish.

"I like to switch it up a bit," I informed her, trying to be nice.

She just nodded and turned back to Tom. "So, you guys gonna practice or what?"

"Oh yeah," said Tom. He looked at me. "You can sit over there if you want," he said, pointing to the milk crate he had placed next to his GF.

I just nodded and sat next to Phoebe.

"Okay, Travis," said Mark, glancing at my companion. "Let's see what you got."

Travis just nodded, taking his drum sticks out of his back pocket and twirling them around his fingers as he walked over to the drum set. He sat down and glanced over at me. I gave him a reassuring smile and he smiled at me too, and then began his warmups. 

By the time he was done he was drumming fast as lightning, and Tom and Mark were staring at him, their mouths dropped open in disbelief. Phoebe, though, leaned in to me and whispered (as if people could overhear her over Travis drumming his ass off), "Are you two dating?"

I shook my head. "We've been best friends for years, though."

She nodded, continuing to watch him. "Well, I met Tom at a show."

"Like, a Bad Religion show, or..."

She shook her head. "Blink show. My friend had backstage passes and so I got to meet them. We started dating a bit later."

My mind: teeny bopper..... My voice: "Oh. That's cool."

"How'd you and...."

"Travis," I reminded her.

"...meet Tom?"

"We were at a bar last....Wednesday," I said, taking a second to remember the date. "Met him and he let Trav in to the band. I guess I'm the new roadie."

She just nodded and turned back to the boys. We watched them practice and have fun. It was a good day.


	4. Mutt

“Hey Skye!” Tom called, running up to me and Travis. We were just about to leave from a totally awesome practice that day – except for that Phoebe part. That part kind of sucked.

“Hey Tom!” I mimicked him with a smirk. I’ve already grown closer to him and Mark today – it was hard not to, but I could tell I was gonna end up pissing Phoebe off sooner or later. I sighed just thinking about it. Why was life so complicated?

“You said you needed a singer and lead guitarist, right? For your band?” Tom asked as Travis got into the band to leave us to talk.

“Yeah,” I confirmed.

“Sweet,” he smirked. “I know this girl, Rhine. She’d be perfect for you. She’s a really good singer. She sings and…stuff.”

“She can play guitar too?” I asked with a slight giggle, raising my eyebrows at him.

He immediately nodded. “Oh yeah. She’s really good.”

“Cool,” I said. “I’ll look into it. Do you, like, have her number or anything…?”

“Oh. Yeah. Wait here.”

Tom turned and ran all the way back into his house, so Travis rolled the window down so he could talk to me. “What are you too babbling on about?” he asked me.

“Tom claims he knows a girl that could lead for Sphincter,” I said with a slight shrug.

His eyes shot up. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” I said, rolling my eyes slightly. “I wouldn’t lie to you, T-Rav.”

“Don’t call me that,” he laughed.

“I’ll stop calling you that if you stop calling me Smurfette,” I bargained.

He seriously contemplated it for a moment. “Ehh…nah. I’ll live with T-Rav if it means I’ll still be able to call you Smurfette.” He smirked at me and I just groaned. He could act like such a kid sometimes.

We were interrupted from our interesting conversation when Tom ran back outside again. “I have her number right here,” he said when he stopped in front of me.

He shoved a napkin into my hands where he had scribbled seven numbers on it in black pen. I laughed. “What’s her name again?”

“Rhine. Rhine Saunders.”

“Sounds good,” I said with a laugh.

“Dude!” Travis called to Tom. “Is she hot?”

I groaned. “Oh my God,” I muttered.

Tom grinned. “She’s a model.”

Travis’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. “No way,” he said. “You aren’t fucking with me, are you, dude?”

He grinned again. “Nope. I have some pictures of her on my phone…”

I would’ve banged my head on Travis’s car, but he’d kill me, and I also wouldn’t have made such a true comment as I did when he pulled out his phone. “YOU, my friend, are a stalker,” I informed my newest friend. Then I turned to Travis. “YOU are NOT gonna hit on any of my future possibly-will-be-bandmate, and YOU.” I turned back to Tom. “Don’t you have a girlfriend?”

“So?” asked Tom, looking at me like I was crazy. “That doesn’t mean I still can’t look at other girls.”

I almost yelled, “Ummm, YEAH, it DOES!” in his face, but he had already pulled up a picture on his phone and showed it to Travis.

“Dude, she’s smokin’,” said Travis with a signature smirk.

“I know, right?” said Tom, grinning.

They stood there for around fifteen seconds, just staring in absolute wonder, and I rolled my eyes. “Are all guys like you two?” I asked them.

Tom glanced up and at me. “You mean like we look at other girls when we’re in a relationship?” I asked.

I just nodded.

“Idunno,” said Tom. “It’s probably just me, though.” He turned the phone off and put it back in his pocket – much to Travis’s dismay – and then smirked at me. “By the way,” he said with a charming smile, brushing his long bangs out of his eyes. “You’re pretty hot, too.”

In order to hide the blush I could feel obviously growing in my cheeks, I buried my head in my hands. “I’ll never get guys,” I groaned.

“Hey, we’ll never get girls,” said Tom with a grin.

“Okay, I’m just…no,” I said, shaking my head at him with the slightest smile. “I’m just gonna leave now.”

“You’ll be back for our next practice, right?” he asked me.

“When is it?” I asked, getting in the passenger’s side door next to Travis.

“Wednesday.”

“I’ll be there,” I sighed.

He grinned and gave us a peace sign as Travis rolled up the window and drove off. He chuckled a little. “Aww, looks like Tom likes you,” he joked.

I groaned again. “Just because he thinks I’m hot doesn’t mean he likes me.”

“You never know,” said Travis with a smirk.

“Like you should be talking,” I reminded him. “You were just about to pass out when you saw Rhine or whoever the hell that was.”

“What?” he asked me innocently. “She was hot.”

“You’re so perverted.”  
“So it’s perverted to think a girl is hot these days?” he asked me in mock disbelief. “What has become of our society?”  
I sighed. “You’re a retard.”

“Thanks,” he grinned.

There were some days that I loved my best friend. Then there were all the rest of the days when Travis Barker scared the hell out of me. This was one of those all the rest of the days.

* * *

“Hello?” said the other end of the line.

“Umm, hi,” I said. “Is this Rhine Saunders?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Who is this.”

“My name is Skylar Roberts,” I informed her, hating that I sounded so business-like. “I’m new friends with your friends Tom DeLonge and Mark Hoppus. I just moved here with my friends Travis Barker and Autumn Taper. We’re in a band Sphincter 8, and we need a guitarist and vocalist.”

“Wow, really?” she asked, sounding genuinely interested.

“Yeah,” I said with a growing smile. “Tom told me you were a good guitarist and vocalist.” Among other things, I added to myself.

“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” she laughed. “You’re friends with To and Mark already, huh?”

“Yep,” I said. “Somehow.”

“Well, you’re in for one hell of a ride of your life, girl, lemme tell ya,” she said. “But you know them, and you seem cool. Are you coming by their practice on Wednesday?”

I nodded, then remembered she couldn’t see me. “Yeah,” I said instead. “My friend Travis is the new drummer of their band and I guess I’m now an official roadie and I’m forced to go to all the practices.”

She laughed. “That sounds like Tom and Mark. Well, I’ll be there,” she told me. “Bring your friend Autumn too. We can have some girl time while Blink’s doing whatever Blink would do during practices.”

I laughed a little. She was cool. “Okay. Thanks, Rhine.”

“No problemo.” I could feel her grin through the phone. “I’ll see you then.”

“Cool. See you then.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

I hung up the phone and turned around to see Travis in the doorway, smirking a little at me. “Yes…?” I asked him.

“OHMYGODISSHECOMINGTOPRACTICE?” My best friend lost his cool in about a second and now he was flipping out.

I smirked at this, finding it extremely entertaining. “Yes,” I said slowly with a laugh.

“You have to help me,” he said, grabbing my arms and shaking me. “I have NO IDEA what I’m gonna wear!”

“It’s in four days…?” I reminded him. “And since when do men care about what they’re gonna wear?”

“Since there’s gonna be a supermodel at those men’s practices and one of those men seriously need to impress or he’s going to make a total fool out of himself and his best friend is going to laugh in his face and yell ‘I TOLD YOU SO’ in his face,” he said all in one breath.

I took a minute to process this and then nodded slowly. “Alright Trav,” I said. “I’ll help you. But if this backfires…” I just shook my head. “This is gonna be interesting.”

“Obviously,” he said, letting go of me and turning away, collecting his cool and then turning back to me. “Sorry ‘bout that. ANYWAY…”

I just laughed. “There are some days, Trav,” I laughed, walking past him and out of the kitchen. “Some days.”


	5. Sometimes

Wednesday just couldn’t come fast enough. Me and Autumn were just excited to meet the girl who just might become Sphincter’s new lead singer/guitarist. But with Travis, each passing day just made him more and more nervous.

He was up at 9am on Wednesday morning, running around like a lunatic. I usually only get up around 11:30am, so when he came downstairs that morning making a huge racket, I couldn’t get back to sleep after he woke me up. So I make the effort to get out of bed and pull on my Chicago Blackhawks sweatshirt before heading down to the first floor.

I yawned and stretched and watched as Travis paced in front of the microwave, waiting for his Poptart to finish cooking. I laughed. “Are you in a hurry for something?” I teased him.

He stopped and glanced up at my voice, as if he hadn’t notice I had been standing there the whole time. “You still need to help me with my clothes,” he reminded me.

I rolled my eyes. “Wear what you always wear.”

“But when I do that I look disheveled!”

I sighed, putting my head in my hands. “Travis,” I said slowly, as if talking to a little kid. “Calm down. Eat your Poptart. Spike up your Mohawk. I will be upstairs in a few.”

“Okay.” The microwave beeped, thus ending our conversation. Trav took it out and shoved it in his mouth, then put the dish in the sink. I rolled my eyes, laughing a little as he gave me a thumbs-up and then ran up the stairs.

“Some days,” I muttered to myself. “Some days.”

I fixed myself my own Poptart, and then when I was done eating it, I chugged some of the milk from the carton and then went upstairs to my best friend’s room. He was in the shower, so I just went in there and opened up his closet, grabbed his favorite hoodie, a Bad Religion t-shirt, his normal dickies and his favorite pair of Vans, and I tossed them all onto his surprisingly freshly-made bed. “THERE,” I yelled, then went downstairs to see what was on the TV.

Around ten minutes later, Travis came back downstairs, wearing what I had picked out for him. “This is what I always wear,” he informed me.

“You’re stating the obvious,” I said, turning the channel to Fuse, seeing it was doing a special on hip-hop, and changing the channel again immediately.

“Why?” he asked after a minute of silence.

I sighed. “I know this is hard to believe,” I told him with a slight eye roll. “But girls like guys who are themselves. She’ll like you more if you’re being yourself than if you base your entire relationship off of her with a lie.”

“Chicks are so complicated,” Travis announced after contemplating that for a minute.

I rolled my eyes. “It’s basic science, retard.”

“Well, I don’t remember anything from science class, so stuff it,” Travis informed me.

I smirked. “Stuff what? A turkey?”

A pillow was thrown in my face. I just laughed. Then I gave up on the TV, getting up and tossing him the remote. “I’mma go get a shower.”

“You do that,” Travis called as I disappeared up the loft steps.

* * *

“T-RAV!!” I yelled, grabbing the keys to his car as I slipped on my blue and black Vans. “HURRY THE FUCK UP, JESUS CHRIST!! I’M LEAVING AND IF YOU DON’T COME DOWN RIGHT NOW I’M GONNA DRIVE YOUR CAR!! YOU NEVER KNOW, I MAY JUST WRECK IT!!!!”

That did it for my friend. He flew down the stairs and snatched the keys away from me. “Don’t you DARE touch Stacey,” he warned, walking out the door.

I just stared at him weird for a minute. Travis acted like his cars were his own children. In fact, they probably were in his mind.

He turned around in the hallway of the apartments. “Hurry the fuck up, slow-poke,” he said, as if I hadn’t just been yelling that up the stairs to him a mere thirty seconds ago.

I just sighed, smiling a little, as I followed him out, closing and locking the door to the loft in the process.

We picked up Autumn on the way there and arrived at Tom’s house around twenty minutes later. There were a few extra cars parked everywhere, and as usual, we could hear the live music playing from the garage.

Mrs. DeLonge was waiting for us today. She opened the door before we could ring the bell. “Hello Travis, Skye,” she smiled at us. “Who’s this?” she asked, glancing at our friend.

“This is Autumn,” Travis introduced them.

“Hello,” our friend said, waving and smiling sweetly.

“Hello, I’m Mrs. DeLonge, Tom’s mother. Please, do come in; they’re in the garage, as usual.”

“Thanks,” we all mumbled and scurried past her and into the garage.

“HEY, LOOK WHO IT IS!!!” Mark yelled obnoxiously as we stepped inside.

Tom turned around and flashed this lopsided grin at us; it made me smile back. “Hey,” he greeted us.

“Hi,” we all said back.

I introduced Autumn to the rest of the crew – who I knew, anyway. There was a girl sitting in the corner next to Phoebe. She had brown hair and tanned skin – she was wearing short shorts showing off her long legs, sandals and a Green Day t-shirt.

I glanced over at Travis to see that his mouth had dropped open in awe. I rolled my eyes mentally and nudged him. His mouth immediately closed, and he blushed a little. The girl smiled a little, obviously noticing his reaction, and looked like she was about to say something before she was interrupted by Tom. “This is Rhine,” he announced. “Rhine, this is Skye, Travis, and Autumn. I guess. Yeah.”

I laughed a little and waved at her. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she said.

“Hi,” was all Travis could come up with.

* * *

Me, Autumn and Rhine spent most of the practice inside, up in Tom’s room talking. We were strumming away at one of his acoustics, assessing Rhine’s awesomeness at playing and singing. She was really good – I hated to say it, but she was better than our old singer/guitarist, Jackie. I liked her.

Me and Autumn exchanged knowing glances before turning back to her. “Welcome to Sphincter 8,” Autumn announced.

Rhine squealed and hugged us both. “Yay!” she giggled a little. “Thanks so much!”

“So I think we should start practicing and shit soon,” I suggested after celebrating some more for a few minutes. I looked at Rhine. “You need to learn all the songs.”

She laughed. “Let’s take opposite dates from the boys,” Rhine suggested. She looked at me with a little smile. “Are you and Travis dating?” she asked me.

I shook my head. “Nope. Just friends.”

“But you share an apartment?” she asked, confused.

I shrugged. “Loft. Two bedrooms.”

“You don’t like him, either?”

I laughed. “No, I hate him. Like that,” I added when Autumn gave me a classic eyebrow raise. I stuck my tongue out at her and then glanced back at Rhine. “Why?”

“He’s hot,” she smiled, blushing a little when she revealed this to us.

My eyes widened and my smile grew bigger. “No way.”

“Yeah, kinda,” she laughed. “He seems cooler than Tom and Mark. And, unlike Tom, his girl – who is a friend – ” she added when I looked at her weird. “Is cool.”

I laughed. “Thanks,” I told her with a smile, and then I nudged Autumn. “She means you too.”

“Yeah. Definitely,” she added.

“Well, I have some news for you,” I said with a smile. “I think he likes you too.”

“Really?” she asked, her eyes widening.

I nodded. “Yeah. I think we should go back down and talk to him.”

“Seriously?” she asked, still in disbelief.

I laughed at her. “Seriously. Come on.” We all got up off the floor and put Tom’s acoustic back in its stand. “Let’s go.”

We walked downstairs, said hello to Mrs. DeLonge, who was working in the kitchen, and went back out on the garage. Phoebe was gone and practice seemed to be halted – or over early, you take your pick – and now Mark was sitting and talking to Travis, his drum sticks in his hands and the seat next to him empty, and Tom was strumming an acoustic guitar.

“Aloha,” Rhine greeted the guys.

They all glanced up, well…Travis’s head shot up at her voice. She glanced at me and I smirked at her, sitting down next to Tom. Mark was staring at Autumn, so she went over and started talking to him.

“One seat left,” I smirked a little.

She stuck her tongue out at me and walked over to Travis, sitting down and striking up a conversation with him. His eyes flickered over to me, and I just smirked before glancing at Tom. “So where’s Pheebs?”

“She had to go home,” he said with a smirk.

“Why?”

“Idunno. You tell me. You’re a girl.”

“Last time I checked,” I smirked a little.

We were silent for a moment, but it was a peaceful silence. I watched as Tom’s fingers switched swiftly from chord to chord, making a pretty cool-sounding melody. Mark and Autumn were talking quietly with each other while I could overhear Travis and Rhine talking about things.

“What’s up with them?” Tom asked me quietly without even looking up.

I dragged my eyes off of my best friend and new bandmate and glanced down at Tom’s guitar again. “What’s up with who?”

“Travis and Rhine.” A smirk was plastered on his face.

“They like each other.”

“That’s cliché,” he laughed.

“Yeah, but it’s sweet,” I said, glancing over at them.

“Yeah, maybe.”

“What’s up with you and love?” I asked him. I couldn’t hold my tongue this time. Tom was weird when it came to relationships and stuff. He doesn’t like cliché stuff, obviously, he didn’t think it was very sweet that Travis and Rhine were talking, and earlier in the week he had told me that I was hot while he was dating another girl – who happened to not be here right now.

Tom was silent for a minute, then he put his guitar down and grabbed my wrist, standing up and pulling me up with him. “Come on, I’ll get you a drink and we’ll talk about it.”

I followed him inside to the kitchen. His mom was in there, though, cooking what was probably dinner. “Hey Mom,” Tom greeted her, opening up the fridge and grabbing two Cokes.

“Hey Tom. Hey Skye,” she greeted us both with a smile. “How was practice?” she asked her son.

“Good. We finally finished Don’t Leave Me today,” he said with a grin.

She smiled too. “Tell the others I said great job,” she informed him. Then she turned to me. “What’s the verdict on Rhine?”

I grinned. “She’s in.”

“A good day all around,” she said with another smile. “Congrats. I look forward to hearing you both play.”

We thanked her politely and then Tom closed the refrigerator door, handed me a Coke, and nodded his head towards the stairs. We said goodbye to Tom’s mom and then headed up into his room.

We were in the upstairs hallway when Tom announced, “Okay…brace yourself,” and then opened up the door.

My mouth dropped open in awe as we both stepped inside. “Whoa,” I said, looking around. His room was amazing. It was messy, but it wasn’t too messy. He obviously tried to keep SOME order in his room, and for that I thanked him. His bed was shoved in one corner and he had one guitar in another corner. He had a closet, a dresser with an old-school TV on top of it and a desk in another corner. What was the best part of it all was that his room was covered with Bad Religion posters.

“Your room is amazing, Tom,” I said, turning my gaze back to my friend, who smiled a little.

“Thanks,” he told me.

We both sat down on the bed and stared at the TV. “Does it work?” I finally asked with a slight laugh.

“Nope,” he said. “Don’t know why it’s still in here.”

I smiled at him and we went into a silence again. Not some awkward silence. It was a nice silence, a friendly silence.

“So,” I said, prompting him. “Why do you act all weird when it comes to relationships?”

Tom sighed and laid down on his bed. I did the same too. “I got shot down,” he muttered. “By a girl.”

“Mind telling me what happened?” I pressed on.

He was silent for a minute before he started talking. “Her name was Jordan,” he told me. “She was really pretty. Blonde hair, green eyes. I met her at one of Mark’s parties. The best girlfriend I had ever had.” He took a drink of his Coke before adding quietly, “Then she cheated on me.”

“I’m sorry, Tom,” I said quietly. I didn’t know what being cheated on felt like – I had never been cheated on.

“It’s okay,” he said. “It wrecked me though. Idunno – I only did one-night stands for a few months. Then I met Phoebe.” He sighed. “Idunno. It’s complicated.”

“I can tell,” I said.

“TOM!!”

We were interrupted by someone calling Tom’s name up the stairs. We both sat up and left his room, Cokes in hand, to see who it was.

“Oh. Hey Mark,” said Tom, rolling his eyes slightly with a smile.

“We’re going to go to Joe’s, and you guys are coming,” Mark informed us. “So move your asses and hurry up!” With that, he disappeared.

I turned to Tom. “Joe’s?”

“Kickass ice cream place.” A childish grin spread on his face. “It’s amazing. You’ll love it. Come on.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me downstairs, laughing. This was gonna be a fun group of friends, I could tell.


	6. Dumpweed

“AUTUMN JORDAN TAPER!! GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT!!!”

If you were to sum up what was happening at this instant in one sentence, it would be this: We were late to practice at Rhine’s.

“I’m coming, I’m coming! Jesus!” Autumn yelled right back down.

I sighed, rolling my eyes and checking my watch. We had 15 minutes. We weren’t gonna make it.

About thirty seconds later, Autumn flew down the stairs, her eyeliner pen in hand. “Let’s go,” she said.

I looked at her weird. “Why are you – ”

“I can do it in the car. I’m skilled.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me out of her apartment. “Let’s fucking go.” And with that, we were flying down the stairs. Her apartment was on the second floor, unlike me and Travis’s – we were second to top floor.

We ran through the lobby and out the front door. While running, I unlocked my car. We jumped in,I started it, and we pulled out in around two minutes.

We seemed to take a breath of relief as soon as we hit the road, and Autumn pulled the passenger’s mirror down and started on her eyeliner. I rolled my eyes but focused on the road. I didn’t get why girls wore makeup. Wasn’t it on the inside that really counted?

In around 15 minutes, we pulled up to Rhine’s place. We both got out of the car, I locked it, and we headed up the driveway. Rhine had a HOUSE. Not an apartment like us. It was nice.

We rang the doorbell and I checked my watch while waiting for her to answer. “RIGHT on time,” I announced to my best friend.

“FUCK YEAH!!” Autumn grinned, and we did our secret handshake.

Just then, the door opened. “Hey guys,” Rhine greeted us with a grin.

We waved. “Come in,” she said, opening the door wider so we could walk inside.

“Cool place you have here,” I told her. IT was small, but not too small. We had walked into a living room area, with a TV and a couch and chairs and stuff. I glanced to my right to see the kitchen peeking out from around the corner.

“Thanks,” she grinned at me. “The music room is in here.” WE followed her as she turned us down the hallway and entered the first door on the right. I grinned at the sight when we stepped inside.

It was a very beautiful place. There were band posters plastered all over the walls, ranging in rock bands from Nirvana and Soundgarden to Metallica and Iron Maiden to Green Day and the Ramones and basically everything in between. She even had a Blink-182 poster hung up in the corner. There was a drum set in the room, too, which caught my eye; a stereo and a line of guitars were sitting along a wall.

I couldn’t keep my eyes off of the drum set, though. “This looks amazing,” I said, stepping over to it. “Do you play?”

She shrugged. “I’ve always wanted lessons,” she said.

“I could teach you,” I told her, but then a devious grin spread onto my face. “Or maybe Travis could. He’s more…experienced then I am.”

Rhine rolled her eyes, but she turned pink. She liked him. It was kinda funny to see. They were both so clumsy around each other, it was sweet. I’d never seen Travis so obsessed over a girl before.

Shaking THOSE thoughts out of my head, I turned back to the drum set. “May I?” I asked Rhine.

“Absolutely.” She nodded, opening a drawer sitting next to her, pulling out a pair of drum sticks, and tossing them to me. I caught them with ease and then sat down in front of the set and warmed up to get a feel of the thing. Then I did a drum sequence I had been working on ever since me and Travis moved here. I was in total concentration, so concentrated, in fact, that I didn’t notice that Rhine was staring at me, wide-eyed and in shock, until after I finished playing and glanced up.

Autumn just playfully rolled her eyes at her. “She’s good, we all know,” she giggled.

I grinned sheepishly. “I practice hard,” I shrugged.

“Obviously,” Autumn teased me.

“Alright then,” said Rhine, snapping out of her daze. “Do you have that sequence written down?” she asked me. “We could be able to build a song around it.” She shrugged. “I’m a good lyricist – at least, that’s what everybody tells me.”

Autumn grinned. “I guess I’m doing guitar chords, then.”

I laughed and nodded, taking the piece of paper I originally wrote it down on out of my pocket – I had a feeling I would need it today. I showed it to the two and explained what everything meant. They both nodded and Rhine started looking through the drawers of that table she found my drum sticks in, to see if she could find any of her lyrics.

When she came back, she sat down where we had been sitting, on the floor with our guitars, and smoothed out an old-looking, crumpled piece of paper, and let us read it. On the paper were just two stanzas, but they looked like they could be turned into a song.

There once was a girl  
Who used to like dolls  
Nice little Barbie dolls  
To make use of her time  
She'd bring them to church  
She'd bring them to school  
She'd play with them in the house  
She'd play whenever she could.

Now there's a girl  
Who wears ripped jeans  
Ripped black skinny jeans  
That made her feel happy.  
Now there's a girl  
That wears black lipstick  
Puts it on instead around her eyes  
That made her feel pretty.

“Haha, reminds me of me,” I grinned when I finished reading it.

“Me too,” Autumn nodded. “And if our target audience is people like us, then they could relate to it, too.” She glanced up at Rhine. “Let’s use it and build on it.”

Rhine grinned and nodded, and everybody got to work on trying to figure out guitar chords and I tried to edit my drum beats and help the other two as much as I could. After all, Autumn had to tackle two tracks – guitar and bass.

By the time it had turned from 12pm to 2pm, we had done quite a bit, scrapped some of it, and wrote a little bit more. I liked what we had so far, but I needed a break.

“Hey, aren’t the guys practicing today?” Autumn asked us when I had announced my need to chill out for a while.

We all exchanged glances. “I think so,” I said, furrowing my eyebrows, trying to remember. Even though we wanted to have our band practices on different days than Blink, so far, we hadn’t really gotten around to doing much.

“We should go there and watch them like creepers,” Autumn giggled.

I rolled my eyes at her. “You love creeping on people,” I informed her, standing up. “Alright. Let’s go then.”

The other two stood up, too, and we walked out of Rhine’s house and to my car. “Let’s creep on some Blink-182’s.”

I laughed and started the car. “To Tom’s.”

* * * * *

We ended up at Tom DeLonge’s house in about twenty minutes. Just like when me and Travis first pulled up to Tom’s house at the first day of band practice, we could hear music coming from his garage a street away.

“They’re actually really good,” Rhine told us, “when they actually get around to writing some songs.”

I laughed. It was just like the old Sphincter 8 – back when we were in Ohio. We were the most procrastinative procrastinators in the history of ever.

We pulled up on the street in front of Tom’s by the mailbox, parked and got out. We walked up to the front door and pushed the doorbell.

After a second, Mrs. DeLonge opened the door. “Oh, hello Autumn, Skye, Rhine,” she smiled at us. “I wasn’t expecting you guys today.”

Rhine smiled politely. “Hi,” she greeted her. “We wanted to drop by and watch Blink’s practice today.”

“Yeah,” I nodded agreement. “We finished early.”

She nodded. “Alright then, come on in,” she said, opening the door wider and ushering for us to step inside.

We thanked her and headed into the garage. Blink-182 was in the middle of playing a song; a song I hadn’t heard yet. It seemed to be just finishing because I thought I heard something that had resembled the guitar chords as we were standing outside. I listened as Tom belted out the lyrics.

I need a girl that I can train  
I need a girl that I can train  
Turn your back and run now  
You haven’t got a chance now

I need a girl that I can train  
I need a girl that I can train  
Turn your back and run now  
You haven’t got a chance now!

“WOO!!!!” we all yelled, immediately clapping when the last chord was struck. Tom, Mark and Travis immediately whirled around and grinned when they saw us. We probably looked like a bunch of fan girls, but from what I had heard from that song clearly, it was a pretty kick-ass song.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Phoebe staring. She was sitting where she usually sat – when she was at practice, at least – on the milk crate, and she was staring at us.

More like glaring.

“Hey guys, that was great,” Rhine grinned, smiling even more when she and Travis exchanged glances.

“Thanks,” Mark told us. “We’re probably gonna put that song on the New Record.”

That’s what they’re calling it – the New Record. So far, it hasn’t been titled, so everyone’s been walking around, calling it the New Record, because we’re just cool like that.

“What’s the song name?” I asked.

“Dumpweed,” Tom grinned.

I laughed. “Nice name.”

“I THOUGHT OF IT!!” Mark yelled immediately, his hand shooting up in the air.

We all laughed. Except for, um, Phoebe, of course; she looked more and more pissed the more and more the guys were talking to us. Finally, it looked like she snapped. “Hey Tom?” she asked in a sugary-sweet voice, standing up and walking over to her boyfriend.

Tom turned around. “Yeah.”

“I need to talk to you,” she said with a small smile.

“Ummm…okay,” he said dumbly. She laced his fingers together with hers and led him out of the garage and into the house. I stared after them for a minute. I don’t know what was wrong with me, but I might’ve felt a sick feeling in my stomach to see that…I don’t know. It was probably nothing.

“Skye?”

I immediately turned back to the rest of the people. “Yeah?” I asked them.

Travis sent me a knowing smirk but I glared at him so he looked away. Mark stepped up to me. “We’re done with practice now,” he announced to me, Rhine and Autumn. “We’re gonna catch a movie. Wanna come with?”

I laughed. “Sure,” I answered for all of us.

“Alright then,” said Mark. “Lemme just pack up my stuff…”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll go get Tom.”

Nobody seemed to care, so I slipped out of the garage and looked around for Tom. “Tom?” I called. “Tom…”

Mrs. DeLonge must’ve been upstairs or something, because she wasn’t in the kitchen or dining room, and she would’ve heard and confronted me if she was in the family room. So I walked in to the family room, thinking Tom would be in there, and, well…he sure was.

“Oh shit,” I said, shielding my eyes and immediately stepping backwards. “Sorry.”

I did NOT just walk in on Tom and Phoebe making out.

Oh wait! Yeah, I did.

“Fuck,” I muttered, immediately running through the kitchen and into the garage.

Mark glanced up and saw me all distraught. “Are you alright?” he asked me, a smirk playing on to his lips.

I blinked a few times as if that could get the horrid image out of my brain. “I just walked in on Tom and Phoebe…” I trailed off, rubbing my eyes. “Somebody please help me keep this mental image from burning into my skull.”

Autumn just laughed at me. “Aw, I’m sorry, Skye,” she laughed, pulling me into a random hug.

When she let go, I turned back to the rest of the people in the garage. Finally, Mark asked, “So is he coming?”

“She fucking walked in on them making out, you smart-ass,” Rhine told him, rolling her eyes.

“Oh. Well then.”

We all turned around towards the garage door when we heard another door shut. Tom came back out to the garage, but Phoebe was nowhere to be seen. “Hey.” He grinned at us as if one of us didn’t just walk in on him eating his girlfriend’s face.

Mark acted as if nothing happened, too. “So where’s Phoebe?”

“She had to go,” Tom shrugged. He seemed not at all bothered about this at all, so I shrugged it off.

“Oh. That’s cool. We’re all gonna catch a movie. Tag along?”

His eyes lit up. “FUCK YEAH BROTHER!!!” he yelled, running towards Mark and jumping on him. Mark let out a girlish shriek and stumbled backwards, before actually falling, making everybody crack up insanely – including him and Tom.

“Get your ass off me, dude!” he finally laughed, trying to shove Tom off of him so he could get up.

“Are you calling me fat?” Tom asked, crossing his arms on top of him and pouting.

“…No,” Mark finally stated.

“Oh. So you’re calling me so sexy there’s not enough of me?”

There was even more of a pause. “….Yes,” Mark finally nodded. “Now will you get off of me?”

He grinned. “Okay.” He jumped off of him and then ran over to me. “Did you hear that?” he giggled like a little girl. “I’m so sexy there’s not enough of me!”

I laughed. “Whatever floats your boat,” I told him with a smirk.

“Let’s go!” Mark yelled, pointing upwards in the air once he got back up on his feet. Everyone nodded in agreement and headed out to my car. Oh God, I thought. My car is fucked.

“Hey Skye.” Before I could step outside, Tom grabbed my wrist so I had to turn back towards him. I immediately got a sick feeling in my stomach. Shit, I thought. Was he gonna call me out on it.

Instead, he just grinned. “Do you have any laser pens?” he asked me.


	7. Degenerate

“I would like…six tickets to The Adventures Of Elmo In Grouchland, please?” Mark asked the ticket lady up front.

Me and Tom were standing right in the back, trying really hard not to crack up. We had driven here in my car, the whole time fighting over what movie we were gonna go see at the theater. Finally, Tom suggested we go see “That new Elmo movie that came out a few weeks ago!” and now, here we were, standing there like a bunch of idiots, the ticket lady giving us weird and wary glances at us as she tore off six tickets for the movie.

We all paid the woman and then she let us inside. “Don’t cause any trouble, now,” she called after us.

“Oh please,” Tom muttered to me. “Do we look like the troublemaking type?”

I grinned. “You sure do.”

“Shut up,” he pouted, crossing his arms. His fake-mad expression immediately softened as he looked past me. “HOLY SHIT IT’S GALAGA!!!” and off he ran.

I turned around, as did Mark, Travis, Rhine and Autumn, to see Tom sprinting across the theater area and over to the game room. “Of all the games in there, he wants to play Galaga?” Travis asked in utter disbelief. I could see how he could be confused – Galaga was old as fuck and all the other games seemed brand new and all violent and such.

“Tom loves aliens,” Mark explained.

“We know that,” Rhine rolled her eyes. “At least, I did.”

“Whatever,” Mark shrugged. “He’ll be crawling back eventually because he has no money.”

Travis furrowed his eyebrows. “Then how did he get in?”

I raised my hand. “I paid for him,” I said.

Everyone just nodded understanding. “Who wants food?” Mark asked. When we all raised our hands, we all followed him to the concession stand. We all ordered a shitload of popcorn and a shitload of ICEEs. We were gonna be so hyper by the end of this.

“Does anyone else have ‘it’s alright to tell me what you think about me, I won’t try to argue or hold it against you’ stuck in your head right now?” I finally asked.

Every single person raised their hands and we started laughing hysterically.

Soon enough, while everybody else was talking about random shit, Tom came crawling back to us. “Hey Skye, do you have any money?” he asked me.

“I’m not giving you money, retard,” I told him, rolling my eyes slightly and giving him some popcorn and an ICEE. “I spent it all on us together. I’m broke.”

“DAMMIT!!” yelled Tom. He continued begging, this time moving on to Mark. “Hey Mark, have I ever told you that I loved you?”

“I love you too, Tom,” Mark cried in an old-lady-esque voice, patting his head and wiping away a pretend tear. Then he turned normal. “But no.”

“God, is everybody just broke these days?”

“It’s your fault,” Rhine commented. “YOU’RE the one who didn’t bring any money.”

We talked for a few minutes before Travis finally checked his watch, and then the tickets. “Holy shit!” he said. “The movie starts in three minutes.”

“Oh fuck!” we all seemed to say at once, bursting into laughter before taking off through the movie theater.

We got into the movie just in time. Everybody randomly split up. Autumn and Mark, of course, wanted to be in the very front so they could make sure they didn’t miss a second of their Elmo movie. Travis and Rhine just decided to sit in the middle, and me and Tom, smirking at each other, hopped into the back right corner.

“Let’s do this thing,” I said. There was a scattering of other families around the theater, all looking at us as if we were on drugs or something. I’d be looking at us weird, too – 19-year-olds watching a movie called The Adventures Of Elmo In Grouchland.

Me and Tom slumped down in the back and we got out our laser pens. “Ready?” he smirked at me.

I smirked back. “Fuck yeah.”

The movie started, and Elmo was acting all retarded with his blanket, when we started shining the laser pens at the movie. Mothers turned around and that’s when we ducked behind our seats, trying really hard not to crack up for fear we’d get caught.

Of course, as soon as we started shining it on the people watching, somebody caught us. I hadn’t even noticed the mom that pointed security towards us had slipped out of the theater – if I had, then I would’ve made Tom move to another spot. But, yet again…

“Come on,” said one of the guards. We both didn’t want any more trouble than we’d caused (haha), so we stood up and waved to our friends as they escorted us out.

They didn’t just kick us out of that one theater – they kicked us out of the entire cinema. And as soon as they shut the front doors on our asses, me and Tom started cracking up hysterically for the longest time. “Oh my God!” I said. “That was the best thing ever! High-five!”

We high-fived each other, laughing a bit for a while, until finally I said, “Alright, we need to do something. That movie won’t be over for another hour, and I’m POSITIVE Mark wants to know the end.”

Tom nodded agreement and looked around, his eyes rested on a particular store. “Look!” He pointed to a store right next to the theater. The catch? It was called “Tropical Trends.”

I laughed. “You want to spend TIME going in THERE?” I asked him.

He nodded, his eyes all bright and happy. “Yeah! Come on!” And then, without another thought about it, he grabbed my hand and dragged me inside.


	8. Point Of View

We went inside Tropical Trends because Tom wouldn’t stop flipping out about it, so I agreed to go in with him. It was a small store, it was nice though. Tan-ish walls and blue-ish carpeting. It was a kind of weird mixture, but it smelled like incense in there, and it had a bunch of ocean-related things. Like dolphins and sharks and turtles and alligators and stuff. It was packed to the rim with shit, and there was a fat middle-aged lady behind the counter who bid us a hello. We just waved at her, smiling a little, before starting to look around.

“What the fuck is this?” asked Tom, holding up a huge cube that had a crapload of tree frogs and branches and shit all over it.

I took it from his hands and looked at it. “I think it’s a box,” I stated.

“Then why can’t we open it?”

“Maybe it’s a magic box…?” I asked, turning it in all directions to see if there was anything that could give us a clue. “Look,” I said, pointing to one of the frogs. “This frog is bigger and more colorful-er than all the others.”

“Yeah. So?”

I rolled my eyes at him and pulled the frog. The box opened, and Tom’s eyes stretched wide in delight. “OH MY GOD!!” he giggled like a little kid. “That was amazing!”

I laughed, closed the box and handed it to him. He pulled the frog and the box opened and he started giggling. I laughed too. It was hilarious.

When he finally put the box down, his eyes widened when he noticed something across the way. “WEBKINZ!!!” he yelled, running over to one of the stands full of stuffed animals.

I laughed. I remembered Webkinz. They were like online animals that you activated on their website and they were like your virtual pets. You could buy them shit, feed them, play games with them, take them to school if you actually wanted them educated…

“This brings back memories,” I laughed a little, coming up behind Tom and picking up a Golden Retriever. “I used to have like twenty-something of these.”

“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Tom as he was making the Charcoal Cat and the Tree Frog make out. “I used to have like thirty-six.”

“We should get some!” I said. “This is probably the only place they have them since I haven’t seen them anywhere else.” I jumped up and down. “Can we get some? Please, please, PLEASE?”

Tom gave me a weird look. “Why are you looking at me when you have the money?” he asked me.

I sighed and pulled out a twenty dollar bill. “We can get two.”

Tom’s mouth dropped open. “WAIT!!!” he said. “I thought you said you didn’t have any money?”

I shrugged. “I…found it on the ground…?”

He seemed to buy it – maybe, because he picked up a unicorn. “I want this one!” he giggled.

I looked at him weird. “…Seriously?” I finally asked.

His eyes were wide with excitement and he nodded, making him dance. I just laughed at him. “Ummm, okay,” I said with a giggle. “I’ll get…” I grabbed the seahorse. “He looks cool.”

“Not as cool as Sparkles, bitch!” he said, shoving the unicorn in my face.

I laughed. “You’re naming your unicorn Sparkles?”

He nodded. “Yeah, cuz he’s sparkly.”

I giggled. “I’m naming this one SID VICIOUS,” I said in a low, announcer-like voice.

He laughed. “SID VICIOUS,” he imitated me. “You should actually name it that, with like all capital letters.

“Haha, it probably won’t let me, ‘cause that place is gay.”

“It doesn’t matter! You can name him like BAD RELIGION or something!”

“Yeah, because if they don’t let me name him Sid Vicious, they’ll most DEFINITELY let me name it Bad Religion.”

“Or you can just spell it wrong,” Tom shrugged. “Like, I’m sure there’s only pedophiles on that site now.”

I just laughed and we took our two Webkinz up to the fat middle-aged lady. “Aww,” she said. “You guys are so sweet.”

We looked at her weird. “Well, you guys are dating, right?” she asked us.

Our eyes immediately widened and we both stepped aside. “Oh, umm, no, not…ever,” we mumbled, unable to meet anybody’s eyes.

“Well, you guys would make a cute couple,” the lady shrugged, scanning both the Webkinz and asking if we wanted a bag. When she said no, I handed her the twenty all awkwardly and such, she gave me the change and then we hot-footed it out of there.

“Well, that was awkward,” Tom giggled a little, but it sounded like nervous laughter.

I nervously laughed too. “Yeah. She was stupid.”

He nodded. “Yeah. She was.”

We stood outside for a minute, looking around. “So…” I said, scanning the names of all the stores in the area. “We’ve got a half hour to kill. Where should we go?”

“KROGER!”

I followed where Tom was pointing to actually see the grocery store just a ways away. “Why the fuck do you want to go to Kroger?” I asked.

“So we can go there and act all retarded.” Tom started punching me playfully on my shoulder. “Huh? Huh? Great idea, right? Please? PLEASE come with me?”

I laughed. “If you…really wanna go to Kroger,” I laughed a little. And with that, we set off.

* * * * *

There was actually a lot more people at Kroger than I thought there would be. When they saw two teenagers walking in, the boy holding a unicorn and the girl holding a seahorse Webkinz, you’re basically guaranteed to get strange looks.

“We need…condoms and shit,” Tom told the staring people, which just made me crack up hysterically while blushing madly, covering my face in my hands through laughter.

That gave us more strange looks. “We’re kidding, Jesus,” he told the crowd. “We need, like…candy and shit.” And with that, he grabbed my arm and dragged me off.

“You’re such a pervert,” I informed him.

He waved me off like it was nothing. “I’m aware.”

We headed over to the candy section. Kroger always had those huge-ass tubes each filled with a different candy, and they also had like candy bars and Oreos and other cookies and stuff all in one huge, long aisle.

“I think I’ve found Heaven,” Tom whispered, slowly walking around in circles like in cartoons. Then he nearly crashed into one of the stands so he stopped. “I want candy,” he told me with a little kid voice.

“Well, we spent all of our money on Webkinz,” I told him.

“Last time you said that you actually had a twenty-dollar bill in your pocket,” he informed me, crossing his arms and narrowing his eyes at me. “How do I know if you’re not lying to me or not?”

“You can check my pockets.”

“What if I tickle you?”

“Tom…”

“If I tickle you, will you give me money?” he interrupted.

“I don’t have any money.” I was already giggling, though.

“Your laughter proves your statement false,” he informed me in a low voice, starting to tickle me.

I started cracking up. “Stop it Tom, stop it! I don’t…I don’t have any…money…” By now he had tickled me to the ground. “Get the fuck off of me,” I giggled.

“As you wish,” he said, stopping and helping me up off the ground. “You seem to be telling the truth. But we’ll be back.” He grinned. “Ve vill be back, for candy,” he said in almost a vampire-esque voice.

“Well, now what do we do?” I asked him.

“We go find the bouncy balls,” he told me, grabbing my arm again and starting to drag me.

“Why?” I asked with a laugh.

“Because I want to bounce one across the store and yell, ‘PIKACHU! I CHOOSE YOU!’ I always wanted to do that, you know.”

I almost didn’t hear that last sentence because I was laughing so hard. “You’re an interesting character, Tom,” I informed him.

“I know,” he giggled. We were in the meat section now. How? I have no idea. “Mmm, hot dogs!” Tom squeaked, pointing to a specific area where Kroger stored the hot dogs. “I just remembered how hungry I was,” he whimpered.

“When the others get out of the movie, we’ll go out to eat, dude,” I giggled a little.

“YAY!!!” he yelled like a little boy, getting even more strange looks from the people around us. Actually, we had been getting strange looks from everybody since we had walked in. It actually made everything a lot funnier.

“Tom, let’s go find the bouncy balls,” I laughed. He nodded agreement and pulled me across the store again. Frankly, I had no idea where we were headed, but we never ended up there, because suddenly, over the loudspeaker, an insanely familiar song came on.

Me and Tom started screaming like a bunch of fangirl idiots. They were playing Blink-182 at Kroger. We started jumping in place (in the middle of the bread aisle) and we were making our little Webkinz dance and shit, all while singing.

It’s alright to tell me what you think about me  
I won’t try to argue or hold it against you  
I know that you’re leaving, you must have your reasons  
The season is calling, and your pictures are falling down

We didn’t even make it to the end of the song. Next thing we knew, we were being kicked out.

“What the fuck did we do wrong?” asked Tom. This was the second place we’d gotten kicked out of in, like, two hours.

The manager guy just sighed. “Don’t come back here,” he told us, and then he threw us out and walked back inside.

“I LOVE YOU TOO!!!” Tom yelled after him, waving a little. I started laughing again. We just sat there on the curb, laughing for like ten minutes.

Finally, I pulled out my cell phone and checked the time. “The movie’s over now,” I giggled. “Let’s go meet the others.”

Tom nodded agreement and we both got up and started over towards the cinema.

When we got there, the entire gang was standing there, looking around for us. “Hey guys,” we said as casually as possible. Tom made his unicorn wave.

Travis raised an eyebrow at me as if to say, “WTF was in your cereal this morning?” but I just grinned at him.

“I can’t believe you guys got kicked out,” Rhine was saying, rolling her eyes slightly – I think it was more towards Tom than me. “Were YOU GUYS the ones who were shining those pen things everywhere?”

We started giggling and nodded.

“OH MY GOD!!!” Mark suddenly yelled, his eyes widening in realization. He ran over to Tom and went down to his knees. “TOM HAS A FUCKING UNICORN!!!!” And with that, he started petting its head with one finger.

I, on the other hand, was trying really hard not to crack up.

“Skye, did you get WEBKINZ?” Travis asked me, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion and/or amusement.

I grinned. “Yep.”

Where in fuck can you find WEBKINZ in this day in age?” he asked.

I wasn’t able to answer, because suddenly Tom screams, “I’M HUNGRY AS FUCK, I WANT FOOD, AND WE NEED TO GET FOOD!!”

“Yeah, I suggest we do, ‘cause he’s been complaining ever since we were in Kroger,” I nodded agreement.

“KROGER?” Autumn was just laughing hysterically.

He nodded. “YEAH! They played Dammit and we were singing along and those fuckers kicked us out!” He turned towards the Kroger and flipped them off with a laugh.

“I think a trip to McDonald’s might be in order,” said Travis with a smirk.

“I concur,” me and Rhine said at once. We all laughed and then headed out for McDonald’s.


	9. What's My Age Again?

“What are we gonna be eating at McDonald’s?” asked Mark as we walked inside the restaurant area of the fast-food place.

We all looked up at the menu. “I think I’m gonna have a sub or something,” I mused.

“I want a Big Mac,” Travis informed us.

“I’ll have a burger and fries,” Rhine decided.

“Chicken nuggets!” Autumn yelled with a grin.

“Cool. So what are you having Mar – ” I glanced down from the menus to see Mark and Tom nowhere to be found. “Where the fuck are they?” I asked no one in particular.

“Oh shit,” said Travis. I followed his gaze to see they were already at the counter, ordering – for all of us.

“Mark, what the hell are you doing?” Autumn called to them.

Mark turned around, smirked at us, and yelled at us to “Sit our asses down.”

Scared, we complied, finding a table in the corner by a window. There weren’t many people in the restaurant area, just a Somalian family in the corner and then a group of old people sitting a few tables behind us.

When Mark and Tom came over to our table, they set down a bunch of Happy Meals in front of us. Like, literally – eleven fucking Happy Meals were staring us down. Travis face-palmed and Rhine looked like she was gonna bang her head on the table repeatedly.

“Why in hell did you get these?” I asked Tom, though a hint of amusement showed in my voice as he sat down next to me, as he usually does.

“’Cause the Happy Meal poster said that all the dude Happy Meals got Transformers people!” said Tom happily, grabbing one of the boxes and opening it up, squealing in delight as he pulled out a blue Transformer car…thing.

I laughed and grabbed one of the Meals, too. I pulled out a red Transformer. Mark got a yellow one. Scared for what seemed like their sanity, Rhine, Autumn and Travis each carefully chose a Happy Meal and glanced inside. Travis and Rhine got black Transformers and Autumn got a yellow one.

“If you were gonna get me a Happy Meal,” Rhine informed Mark and Tom, sighing jokingly, “I wished it was a girl’s.”

Tom made a move to get up and grabbed one, but I pulled on his arm and he sat down again. Then I tossed her my red Transformer. “There,” I said. “Red is close to pink. Problem solved.”

She playfully stuck her tongue out at me and tossed me her black one. I grinned and turned it from a car to a robot and then back into a car multiple times while we all ate food. Since the Meals were so small, almost all of us took two.

When we were all done and too lazy to get up and throw our trash out, Mark actually started a Transformers battle. Tom was innocently eating his apple dippers, dipping them in caramel sauce every now and then, when somehow Mark rolled his car across the table, up a Chicken McNugget box propped up by another caramel pack thing, and then it landed RIGHT in Tom’s caramel sauce. Everyone had witnessed this event and we all went, “OOOOOOOOOOOOOH,” all at the same time. I took pride in being the loudest.

That is, until Tom smirked at me, opened up the lid to my kids-size Coke, and fucking dropped HIS car in mine. “OOOOOOOOOOOOOH”s were yelled again.

I took Tom’s car out and dropped it, still dripping with soda, on top of Travis’s second cheeseburger, which was half-eaten by this time, and, extremely offended, rolled his over to what was supposed to be Tom’s Happy Meal box. Instead, Travis proved he should NEVER be permitted to drive Transformer cars because it totally drove off-course and slammed right into RHINE’S Chicken McNugget box instead, making it fall all over, McNuggets falling everywhere.

Inside, I grimaced, thinking that Rhine would like bitch slap my best friend and walk out of there, crush dissolved, and I could tell Travis nearly shit himself, too. But instead, thank God, she started cracking up. “That was AMAZING,” she said with a giggle.

“You’d think it was amazing, Rhine,” Autumn told her with a smirk. That led to a Transformer flying off the table and onto her lap – by me of course. She rolled hers across to Tom, and Tom hit my drink again.

“Okay, this needs to get kicked up a notch,” Travis informed us, picking up his Transformer and transforming it into a robot. Everybody “OOOOOOOOOOOOH”ed again and did the same. Now all of our robots were flying around in the air, “accidentally” crashing into everybody else’s once and a while. Me and Tom were, like…in some kind of duel battle, because he kept hitting me and I kept hitting him, trying really hard not to crack up hysterically as I bumped him and nearly sent him falling out of the booth and onto the ground.

Everyone saw and started laughing. Tom’s mouth was just hanging open, staring at me in mock hurt/shock. “SKYE! That was MEAN!” he informed me, straightening himself back up in his spot as everyone else just laughed.

I didn’t find it very funny, though, when he crashed his Transformer against mine. Hilarious thing was, he crashed it into mine really hard, and I wasn’t expecting that much force…AT ALL. So I, being all swag and such, accidentally let go, and it went flying, and it hit one of the old ladies who was sitting a few spots away from us in the back of the head.

Everyone had witnessed this and our mouths were all hanging open in shock. I glanced over at Tom to see if it had registered in his special, special brain what he had just done, to see his mouth hanging open too, but then it soon turned into half a smile.

The old lady, though, wasn’t impressed. As soon as she turned around to face us, she looked steaming mad.

“Okay,” I said quietly, trying really hard not to move my mouth. “On three. Grab your shit and run for it. One…two…”

I was cut off because Tom yelled, “SHIT!!!” really loud and took off running. Nobody wasted any time running after them. Travis and Rhine snuck out in front of me and I smirked a little to see they were holding hands – awww.

“Can you run ANY slower?” Mark asked me as we took off out of McDonald’s.

I just rolled my eyes at him playfully.

We all ran around a block so no old women would come chasing after us. Then, we all stopped at a pocket park to catch our breath. As soon as we were all breathing normally and properly again, we all burst out into uncontrollable laughter.

“That was fucking amazing!” Mark was laughing so hard he was crying. So was Travis – well, Travis was trying really hard not to drop to the ground and starting to roll around.  
I had to give Tom a quick hug for being that amazing. Well, actually, it wasn’t a very quick hug. We kinda got lost in it. I closed my eyes, inhaling his scent like a creeper. It was a spray of cologne, very little, and then vanilla aftershave. I don’t know…it smelled kinda nice on him.

I suddenly noticed how long we had been standing there, hugging, and I immediately let go. So did he after he noticed what we had just done. I noticed what I had just done, too, and blushed insanely, I’m sure. “Sorry,” I said quietly.

He giggled a little, because he can be a retard sometimes. “It’s okay,” he said.

I smiled a little. I shouldn’t care about embarrassment anymore, after everything that had happened today. Today, I was just lucky I hadn’t been arrested yet.

* * * * *

“I’LL GET IT!!!” I yelled to Travis, wherever the fuck he was. We were back at our loft after a fun-filled day at McDonald’s and the phone was ringing. Glancing at the Caller ID, I saw it was Rhine, so I picked up. “Yello?”

She laughed a little at my greeting. “Hey Skye, it’s Rhine.”

“Cool,” I said with a grin. “What’s up?”

“I have to ask you something,” Rhine informed me.

“Okay,” I said slowly, making a move to sit down on the couch.

“Do you still think Travis likes me?” she asked after a minute.

“I don’t think, honey, I know,” I said with a smirk plastered on my lips. “You’re all he ever talks about.”

“Then why hasn’t he asked me out yet?” Rhine asked.

She was sorta right on that. For them it was obviously love at first sight, and they’ve known each other for a few weeks, so I could see how she could be worried.

I smirked a little and started playing with Sid Vicious, who I hadn’t put down since the McDonald’s incident. “He’s slow,” I told her. “He just wants everything to be perfect and he doesn’t want to be rejected. He’s really shy, Rhine,” I informed her, stating the obvious.

She sighed. “I know,” she said. “It’s just….ugh.”

“I get where you’re going at,” I told her with a slight nod. “I’ll prod him to see if I can get him to ask you out during practice tomorrow. The guys are still coming, right?” I asked after a slight pause.

“Oh, yeah. Definitely,” she laughed a little. “Tom still sounds excited.”

I laughed a little. “Of course he is.”

“What’s going on with you two anyway?” she asked.

I couldn’t keep a sigh from falling past my lips, sinking down into the couch and running a hand through my hair. “He’s got a girlfriend, remember?” I reminded her.

“So? That doesn’t mean he doesn’t like you,” she told me. “His girlfriends are usually a week or two fling.”

“He told me he really liked Phoebe,” I told her, remembering when we had been chilling up in his room randomly and he had talked about the breakup from that one girl he thought he was in love with.

“That’s bullshit,” she told me. “He likes you. The way he looks at you is so sweet.”

I sighed. “I don’t know, Rhine,” I admitted.

“I know he can be a pushover sometimes, but come on, you have to admit he’s hot.”

“That’s true,” I said with a small smile.

“He’s really romantic, too, when it comes down to the thing.”

“I’ll remember that, Rhine,” I said, my smile growing a little bigger. “Maybe if they ever break up. But I don’t know.”

She sighed. “Alright, girl. You need to go and get him, though. You guys would make a really cute couple.”

“So would you and Travis,” I said, trying to change the subject.

“Girl, I know,” she joked like a teenager, with a slight giggle. “Thanks, Skye. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Alright,” I nodded agreement, although I couldn’t see it. “Tomorrow.”

“Bye.”

“Bye,” and with that, I hung up the phone.

Next practice was gonna be an…interesting one at that. I knew that much.


	10. Enthused

“HURRY UP, SKYE, LET’S GO!!!”

Last time me and Travis hitched rides with each other to band practice, it was ME saying THAT to HIM.

“HOLD YOUR ASS ON!” I yelled right back at him. I was still working on parting my hair because I actually felt like looking nice for once. Oh, who was I kidding? Purple-haired girls who listen to punk rock can’t look “nice,” even if they tried.

I parted my hair anyway, and thirty seconds later, I was running downstairs. “Christ,” I told him with a smirk. “Excited, are we?”

“Shut your face, Roberts,” he joked, playfully pushing me.

“My pleasure, Barker,” I smirked, pushing him right back as we headed down the elevator and out to Travis’s car.

We made it all the way to his car before I talked again. “You should ask Rhine out today,” I suggested.

He looked at me weird. “Why today?” he asked.

“Because she’s in love with you and you’re in love with her, duh,” I stated it like the obvious.

He rolled my eyes at me. “Maybe,” he finally told me.

“Do it.”

“Why?”

“Because I fucking said so, Barker,” I smirked.

“And what if I say no?”

“Then you’re a meanie.”

“Alright then. No.”

“Meanie. Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

He rolled his eyes before finally saying, “I’ll THINK about it.”

“That’s all I ask,” I told him with a slight laugh.

When we pulled up to Rhine’s place, I saw a shitload of cars parked up and down the street. Most of them looked familiar, and I knew that the other members of Blink-182 (plus Autumn) were here already.

“See? Look what you did,” said Travis, giving me a small push. Again. “Now we’re late ‘cause you just had to do your stupid hair.”

“I would just like to make you remember LAST time we were late, it was because you were flipping out because you didn’t want Rhine to think you were a retard so you spent like an hour trying to figure out what to wear.”

“That’s different.”

“How?” I asked him, crossing my arms and giving him a look.

“Idunno. It just is.”

“You’re a retard, Travis,” I laughed, ringing the doorbell.

Rhine opened the door literally a second later, like she had been waiting right on the other side of the door for us. “Skye! Travis! You’re here!” She was smiling at my companion, though, and my companion was smiling back. I was smirking.

“Hey Rhine, what’s up?” I interrupted their staring contest, my smirk growing bigger.

She snapped out of it, blushed just the slightest bit, and shrugged. “Waiting for you guys to get here,” she teased.

“Hey, we’re fashionably late,” I said as we stepped inside.

“Oh, fashionably late, my ass,” Autumn joked, giving me and Travis a quick hug. She must’ve been standing behind Rhine or something.

“No, see?” I said, pointing to my hair. “I parted it.”

“Why?”

“So this half falls in my face and looks cool.”

“You’re weird,” Autumn laughed. “Mark and Tom are already in the music room. Come on.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me away from Travis and Rhine quickly, and I knew exactly why – she knew also that those two needed as much alone time as possible.

We entered the music room a few seconds before Rhine and Travis did, and when we did, Autumn yelled, “SKYLAR ROBERTS AND TRAVIS BARKER HAVE FINALLY FUCKING ARRIVED, THANK GOD!!”

Tom glanced up from his guitar, his bangs falling in his face in an actually kinda-cute way, smiled a little at me, and then focused on his guitar again. I rolled my eyes to see Hoppus with a notebook in front of him – as with Tom.

“Wow guys, thanks for the warm welcome,” I teased, sticking her tongue out at me.

“I love you too, Skye!” Autumn squeaked, giving me a hug before grabbing her guitar, as Rhine and Travis had finally entered the room. Travis sat down next to Tom and glanced over at his notebook, which was probably being filled with lyrics and such.

“Oh my God!” Autumn squeaked as she and Rhine sat down on one of the amps, me sitting on the stool behind the drumset, spinning around like an idiot.

“What?” me and Rhine chorused at once.

“I’m in the middle of a song!” she announced, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a wadded paper ball…thing. After a few seconds of unfolding it, and me choking down a laugh, she smoothed it all out and showed it to us. “Look!” she said.

I got up from the stool and headed over to the amps, where Rhine was already reading the song over her shoulder.

Push away the darkness,  
It’s time to let go!  
Down swim against the current,  
Go with the flow.  
Don’t listen to the rest of them,  
You’ll be okay,  
Let’s have fun,  
And focus on today!  
Schools just around the corner,  
Sounds like a real bore.  
You can think about that,  
Or you can.......  
Play with your cat??

“So?” she asked us. “Whaddaya think?”

As I finished reading the poem, I glanced at Autumn strangely, then patted her head.

“I think that’s almost as random as the songs Blink plays,” said Rhine with a smirk, glancing over at the three boys. “Get a drum track and some guitar chords on there and we have our first song!”

“FUCK YEAH!!!!!!” I yelled, maybe a little too loud. Tom bursted into a fit of giggles, but he didn’t even look up from his notebook.

I looked around for something to throw at him, but the only thing I found was an eraser. I chucked it at him and it landed convienently in his lap. Giggling some more, he glanced up at me with his stupid grin on his face, and said, “Thanks, I needed that,” and then he started erasing.

I rolled my eyes. “Retard,” I muttered under my breath with a giggle.

“Love you too, Skye,” I heard.

We spent the rest of the practice working on that song and others we had conjured up in our heads. Finally, I put down my drumsticks and plopped myself down next to Tom. “I’m tired,” I whined.

He rolled his eyes at me. “You’re so lazy,” he laughed.

“Whatcha writing?” I asked, changing the topic.

“A song.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” I said, leaning over his shoulder. “Lemme see.”

Oh no, it happened again  
She’s cool, she’s hot, she’s my friend  
I tried for hours if so  
You leave me nowhere to go

She’s unstoppable, unpredictable  
I’m so jaded, calculated, wrong…

Please take me home  
Too late, it’s gone  
I bet you’re sad  
This is the best time we ever had.

I laughed a little. “Nice,” I said.

“Thanks,” he said. I didn’t bother asking who it was about, I didn’t really feel like I needed to go. Something was knotting up in the pit of my stomach. Idunno, it’s weird. Are these those stupid “butterflies” people in love talk about?

My thoughts were interrupted, though, when Autumn announced, “Sphincter needs to get a fucking gig somewhere!”

“Well, that’s obvious,” I laughed a little.

“I know where you can get one,” Mark glanced up at us, a shit-eating grin on his face.

Oh God, I thought. “What?” I finally asked him cautiously.

“Well, you know how my mom works at a nursing home?”

Me and Travis and Autumn looked at him weird. “It’s true,” Rhine finally cut in. Then she turned to her friend. “Dude, we’re a fucking punk rock band. Is our first gig REALLY gonna be at a fucking nursing home?”

“When we’re famous, it’ll be a great story to tell,” I laughed a little.

“Yeah!” Mark said with a grin. “I’m sure my mom can hook something up. And we’ll be in the crowd, too, so if something totally fucked happens, you can blame it all on us!”

We looked at him weird. Then, I glanced at Rhine and Autumn, raising my eyebrows in question. Finally, Rhine sighed. “Okay. We’ll do it.”

“YAY!!!” Mark shrieked, jumping up from his spot and dancing around like a girl, making everyone in the room laugh.

“Well, this shall be fun,” I laughed a little.  
‹ Cha


	11. Family Reunion

The week passed by surprisingly quickly and before I knew it, I had woken up to the day Sphincter 8 was supposed to play at a fucking nursing home. Whatever. Mark will get shit for it if it fails.

Travis STILL hasn’t grown a pair and asked Rhine out yet, either. I keep prodding him and he keeps refusing. He can be such an idiot sometimes. It’s quite obvious they both like each other. Eventually, during band practice, I nudged Rhine in the direction of asking HIM out. So we’ll just fucking see how it goes.

When me and Travis ended up at the nursing home later that day, we were greeted by Mark. “HEY!” he yelled, waving us over to him. “Everyone’s backstage.”

I glanced at Travis as we followed Mark. “The nursing home has a BACKSTAGE?” I asked him in disbelief.

He just shrugged.

Turns out, there WAS. There was a stage in the cafeteria / BINGO area, I guess. Something like that. There was all of our amps in the back, being set up by Tom. I immediately went over to help him, being a master at amps and shit. “Hey,” I greeted him, starting to fiddle with the knobs beside him.

He grinned. “Hi,” he said.

“Where’s Phoebe?” I asked, trying to make it sound casual.

He shrugged. “She couldn’t come,” he said. “Something about…you know what? She never said.” He shrugged again. “Whatever. You guys’ll do fine without her.” He pushed me a little. “Trust me. I know.”

I stuck my tongue out at him. “Shut up, DeLonge,” I laughed. “We’ll probably fail anyway. A punk rock band in a nursing home?” I rolled my eyes. “You guys are fucking crazy.”

He grinned. “And fucking proud of it,” he told me.

I just rolled my eyes at him.

Half an hour later, Rhine had warmed up her vocals and changed her guitar strings, Autumn had tuned her bass, and I was ready to beat the shit out of my drums. We could hear the old people outside on the other side of the cursing, and we were actually buzzing with excitement at the fact that this was Sphincter 8’s first gig, with Rhine, in fucking California.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” announced some guy probably standing in the middle of the stage. Soon the old people had quieted down. “Today, we have some very special guests, invited here by none other than Markus Hoppus.”

I giggled, turning to my friend. “Is that even your name?” I asked him.

His mouth was dropped open in slight disgust. “NO!” he said, crossing his arms and pouting.

I rolled my eyes. “Get off the stage, dimwit.”

“Yeah, retard!” Tom squeaked, grabbing his best friend’s arm and pulling him off the backstage area and into the crowd. Travis laughed and followed them.

“Ready?” I asked Rhine and Autumn.

We nodded agreement.

“It is my great pleasure to announce to you…Sphinter 8!”

Polite old people clapping was what we were greeted with as the curtain drew. Rhine gave the crowd her sweetest smile and waved. “Hello,” she said, pleasantly and politely. I smirked a little when I saw Travis, Tom and Mark all sneak into seats in the back rows just in time.

“My name is Rhine Saunders,” Rhine continued. “And that’s Autumn” – she pointed to the bassist – “and that’s Skye.” She pointed to me. “We are Sphincter 8, and this is our first gig, so…we hope you like it.” She nodded at me, and I nodded back at her, and I counted us in.

Then, we broke out into Push Away The Darkness. At the “play with your cat” part, the crowd started laughing. It boosted our confidence and we held our heads up higher for the rest of the set. We played some new shit and then some older shit that me and Autumn had written back in Ohio, and we also did some covers, like Green Day’s When I Come Around.

Mark and Tom were singing to that song extremely fucking loudly, making some of the old people who were NOT hard of hearing turn around and look at them weird. They just grinned politely while Travis scooted over in his chair, as if to say, “I’m not with these weirdos.”

Fail.

After finishing When I Come Around, Rhine grabbed the microphone again. The show was almost done, and so we had been planning a surprise up our sleeves. I grinned just at the thought of it. "So..." Rhine started, glancing over at me. "Me and my buddy Skye over there" - she pointed to me, and I waved, twirling my drum sticks around - "have been working on a little song. A few songs, actually. This first one's a cover, of course, but it's one of an unreleased Blink-182 song." I caught Tom's gaze and his eyebrows shot up. Actually, so did Mark and Travis's. It made me smirk. "So yeah," she said again. "We're actually gonna SWITCH PLACES. Duh, duh, DUH. I know," she joked. "You'll be sad to see me leave."

The crowd was basically in awe at that point, though they chuckled at Rhine's last remark. But I saw Tom say to Mark, "You're kidding." Mark just shrugged, and Travis seemed to say, "I didn't know about this." That just made me giggle.

"So," said Rhine. "Tell us what you think of it, cuz we've both been working on these parts, even though I don't actually play drums." Travis's eyebrows shot up again. Apparently he didn't know this about her. "Yep. Okay."

She took her guitar off her shoulder and ran over to me. I gave her my drum sticks, and she took them with a smile as I ran offstage for half a second to get my own guitar, one I named Billie Joe. After Billie Joe Armstrong. I didn't need Red, since he was an electric guitar, so he was sitting offstage...lonely.

Poor Red.

I sat down on the stool provided, and decided not to look at the crowd unless I needed to. I took a second to find the chord I needed to start on, as Rhine (surprisingly skillfully) counted us in.

And as soon as she did, I started playing the guitar, and a few seconds later, Autumn joined in, her bass creating more of a steadier beat.

Tom immediately recognized this song, as he sung the whole thing. It was partly about that Jordan girl, who he had dated before he met (sigh) Phoebe. All his previous sad love songs were about Jordan.

"I'm sick of always hearing all the sad songs on the radio," I started. "All day it is there to remind an over-sensitive girl that she's lost and alone, yeah."

A short, ten-second instrumental followed and I glanced up at the crowd. Well, not the CROWD, really. More like Tom, who was awestruck.

"I hate our favorite restaurant. Our favorite movie. Our favorite show," I continued, glancing at Tom again with a smile. "We would stay up all through the night, we would laugh and get high, and never answer the phone."

As another instrumental took it's part, I saw Mark nudge Tom with a knowing smile, say something to him I couldn't make out, and got Tom to blush. TOM DELONGE. Blushing. Wow.

I glanced shyly down at my guitar again. "I can't forgive, can't forget. Can't give in. What went wrong, 'cause you said this was right." I glanced back up at Tom and we sang together, "You fucked up my life."

I giggled as the next instrumental started, and seemed to end as quickly as it came.

"I'm sick of always hearing sappy love songs the radio. This place, it's fucking cursed and it's plagued, and I can never escape, when my heart it explodes.

"I can't forgive, can't forget. Can't give in. What went wrong, 'cause you said this was right. You fucked up my life."

By now everyone was clapping along to the beat as I started my little solo, which ended up with some violin playing in the background (taped over the actual recording, of course - I didn't know any violin players).

And then, after singing "I'm kicking out fiercely at the world around me. What went wrong?" four times, I finally ended the last note with, "I'm kicking."

As soon as it registered in the crowd's minds that I was done, they all started applauding me, which made me blush and look down at the guitar. When I glanced up at the guys, Mark had given me a thumbs-up, and Travis was smirking at me, and Tom mouthed to me, "Amazing." That just made me grin, but not before getting squished by Autumn in a freaking huge bear hug. "Wow!" I laughed. "Nice!"

It didn't take a while for Rhine to join in, too. After a second, I said, "Okay guys. The crowd doesn't want to see us hugging." I giggled. "They want to hear us play BLINK!!"

"WHAT!!" yelled Autumn, maybe a little too loud, as the front tables of people heard and gave her a weird look. She just cheekily grinned it off.

When everyone had returned back to their positions, I stood up. "Okay people," I said. "Hold on." I ran offstage for a second and quickly changed guitars from Billie Joe to my old friend, Red.

I'd had Red since I was 12. He was the first guitar I'd ever owned. It was old, beat up, and basically a piece of shit that was ready to fall apart any minute, but I loved it with all my heart. Every once and a while, I would decorate it with stickers. I had a bunch of Green Day stickers, first of all. There was the band name, and then "Lushotology Should Be Teached In Schools!" Along with, "Billie Joe Armstrong Knows How to RIDE LLAMAS!!" And then, of course, "Mike Dirnt And The Milkman FTW."

I was such a dedicated fan.

Besides all the Green Day shit, there were many other bands, like Bad Religion, NOFX ("That's No Way To Go, Franco Un-American"), Jimmy Eat World, Blink-182, My Chemical Romance, The Offspring ("My friend's got a boyfriend and she hates that dick (and the guy!)"), and so many more bands.

I smiled as I put Red around my neck and ran back out onto the microphone, zooming out of my own world and snapping back to reality. After all, I COULD talk about Red all day. I just chose not to, so as not to bore anyone. Yes, I'm talking about you, readers.

"Okay," I said, my fingers automatically going to the first chord. "So, this is an old one. From Cheshire Cat, Buddha, and eventually Greatest Hits. Hopefully." I laughed, as they haven't even created a Greatest Hits playlist yet. "Hopefully, they put this song on the Greatest Hits album, because it is my favorite song by Blink, besides What's My Age Again." I smirked. "SO," I said. "Hope you like it."

Carousel is NOT an easy song to play, especially when your drummer is at guitar and singing, and your guitarist and singer is at drums. But guess what? We fucking pulled through.

Autumn started with this kick-ass amazing bassline (written by none other than Mark Hoppus himself) for a while, and eventually I started strumming a little bit.

After the intro, we broke out into full punk rock-ness, 90s-ness, and Rhine ended up bashing the shit out of those fucking drums. So me and Autumn were jumping around like kangaroos on crack, and Rhine could pretty much be identified as the human Animal from the Muppets.

Eventually, though, I had to stop jumping and START singing. And I did. "I talk to you every now and then," I sang. "I never felt so alone again! I stop to think at a wishing well. My thoughts send me on a car-o-sell!"

At the word "Carousel," the crowd (made up of people mostly 55 or older, mind you little fuckers), started cheering.

"Here I am, standing on my own," I continued. "Not a motion from the telephone! I know not a reason why. Solitude's a reason to die!"

Chorus time. "Just you wait and see," I said, holding the last note out.

"Just you wait and see," sang Autumn, taking charge of Mark's line.

"That school life is a, it is a woken dream! Aren't you feeling alone!" I continued. I held out "alone" like Tom always does, and he started cracking up when I did it, and it took all of my self-control to only grin and not to laugh like an idiot on stage.

"I guess it's just another, I guess it's just another, I guess it's just another night alone!" Me and Autumn sang the last two words together, and then it was back to jumping.

Until, of course, after the kick-ass bassline, I had to sing again.

"Now as I walk down the street," I started. "I need a job just to sleep in sheets! Buying food every once and a while, but not enough to purchase a smile!"

I stopped playing so only Autumn's bassline and a quite-steadier-beat-than-two-seconds-ago Rhine played the bass drum, like "THUMP. THUMP. THUMP."

"A tank of gas is a treasure to me," I sang. "I know now that nothing is free. I talked to you every now and then. I never felt so alone again!"

I started playing the bassline on my guitar, then, as Rhine kept that simple drum beat going for a few seconds, before going crazy again.

There it was. An amazing solo.

"Just you wait and see!"

"Just you wait and see!"

"As school life is a, it is a woken dream!" I sang. "Aren't you feeling alone?" Tom started cracking up again as I held that stupid note for the second time in the song, which made me grin again.

"I guess it's just another, I guess it's just another, I guess it's just another NIGHT ALONE!!" Once again, me and Autumn sang "night alone" together. Soon after I stopped singing, we ceased play, too (but not before another jump out of me and Rhine, just for the hell of it). And the crowd started clapping so loud I thought I was gonna go deaf...well, not really. But still.

"Thanks," I laughed. I turned to Rhine and mouthed, "One more song?"

She nodded. "What should it be?" I asked.

"Dunno," she shrugged.

"Wow, I love that song," I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes with a grin. She stuck her tongue out at me and I laughed.

"Okay," I said slowly, turning back to the crowd with a smile. "SO. One more song. And our setlist is done. SO, what should we play?"

The crowd started murmuring for a second, until Mark yelled, "FAMILY REUNION!!"

"We're not playing Family Reunion," I said with a laugh, rolling my eyes again. Did he NOTICE half the people here were senior citizens? It was a risk just to be playing punk music here. Our setlist was limited, as these people could get seriously offended by some of the shit I listen to.

"Fine. WHEN YOU FU - "

"Not that either, buddy," I said with a smirk. Of all the offensive songs we could've chosen to play for these people, "When You Fucked Grandpa" would PROBABLY be the worst.

"You're no fun," he said, crossing his arms and fake-pouting in a childish way.

I just gave him a joking look.

"The Beatles!" yelled Travis.

Holy shit. The Beatles. Fucking DUH.

I turned to Autumn. "What Beatles songs do you know?"

"Hey Jude," she said.

I ran over to Rhine. "Do you know Hey Jude?" I asked.

"On guitar," she said. "Not drums."

"Okay. Let's switch places, then," I said. We both ran backstage. I put Red down and Rhine handed me my drum sticks back as she grabbed her guitar. She didn't name her guitar. She thought it was "creepy."

Whatever.

Now back in our original positions, Rhine at the microphone and me behind the drums, Rhine finally announced to the audience, "Hey Jude."

The crowd immediately started buzzing with excitement. They obviously knew this song.

We sped through Hey Jude pretty fast. Well, probably not really (that song is REALLLLLLY long), but the audience fucking LOVED it. I was proud of representing the Beatles (and Ringo Starr). It felt so cool.

When we were done, the audience gave us a standing ovation. We all ran over to where Rhine was standing, faced the crowd, and bowed. I wanted to throw my drum sticks backwards, which I usually did after gigs back in Ohio and shit, but I didn't. There were seniors in the audience.

Blink met us backstage a few minutes later, after the show, when the audience slowly started filing out of the auditorium. "You guys were AWESOME!!" Mark yelled.

Rhine laughed. "Thanks," she said.

"I didn't know you played drums," Travis said to Rhine, still looking a little surprised from that fact.

She turned pink and shrugged. "I only know those two songs."

"I could teach you more if you like," said Travis shyly.

She smiled. "That would be awesome," she said.

As Mark told Autumn how "awesome her cover of the bassline for Carousel was," I turned to Tom. "Dude, I didn't get to throw my drum sticks," I giggled.

"Do it now," he smiled.

"It's only you," I grinned back.

"Exactly," he winked.

I laughed, turned around and tossed my drum sticks in the air, much like a bride throws her bouquet of flowers to a bunch of random chicks at her wedding, except my rendition was cooler.

Tom caught them, of course, and giggled. "OH MY GOD!" he squeaked like a girly girl. "I did NOT just get Skye Roberts' drum sticks!"

"You did TOO!" I squeaked, like a girly girl also, with a laugh.

"I DID!!" he screamed, picking me up by the waist and making me scream.

"What the hell?" I giggled, still in the air.

"Sorry, couldn't resist," he giggled. I rolled my eyes at him.

We ended up on a bench, just sitting there randomly.

"You have a...really good voice," he said after a minute.

"Thanks. You too," I giggled.

"Nah," he laughed. "My voice is shit."

"Sounds like someone's been listening to Mark's stupid, pointless opinions," I sang with a grin.

He poked me in the ribs, which made me giggle. "Okay, okay!" I surrendered. "I was kidding! Sorry!"

"You better be," he laughed.

"YO!!"

We looked up. And there was Hoppus himself, with Autumn by his side. "We're gonna go get ice cream. Wanna come with us?"

"Sure," we said together, standing up and following him, Autumn, Travis and Rhine out the door.

I love ice cream.

* * * * *

Ice cream plans failed. Wanna know why? Because Phoebe just RANDOMLY had to show up in the middle of fucking NOWHERE, and now she was here to remind everybody that she was Tom’s slutty girlfriend, (because she didn't give two shits about anyone in our group, except for Tom) and was now joining us for ice cream.

And there she was, decked out in a Blink-182 shirt. "Tommy!" she screamed as we came in, running over to us and hugging her boyfriend. Me and Travis exchanged glances. "How're you doing?" she asked Tom in an extremely fake voice once they let go of each other.

"Good," said Tom.

"Hi guys!" she said cheerfully, turning to us. She said it happily, but her eyes spoke otherwise. I dug my hands deeper into my sweatshirt pocket and glanced at Travis again, who had done the same.

"Hey," we all muttered.

As she and Tom started chatting, Autumn pulled me away from the group, over to the line to get ice cream so we could talk more in private.

"She's such a fucking bitch!" she hissed.

"Yeah," I sighed sarcastically. "Aren't you glad to know her?" I glanced over at Tom, who was talking to her. His gaze had wandered away and rested on me. He gave me a quick smile before turning back to his girlfriend. My stomach suddenly felt happy then. It made me sad he was with her. "He doesn't deserve her," I finally informed my friend.

Autumn smirked. "Oh yeah?" she asked. "And who does he deserve?"

"Someone who actually listens rock music, that's a start," I muttered, rolling my eyes.

"And who might that be?" she asked.

I shrugged. "I don't know," I said. "Not her, though. She seems like a Lil' Wayne fan."

"How I hate him so," Autumn sighed. "Eminem fuck the world!"

I laughed. "Nice," I said.

Me, Autumn and Tom were the first ones to get their ice cream, and we all ended up sitting down at a booth. Of course, though, I had to end up next to Tom.

"Excuse me," said Phoebe, squeezing in next to us.

I sighed and put on a smile. "Sorry," I said, a fake grin plastered on my face as I moved to the other side of the table, next to Autumn. My friend sighed.

"Wow," she muttered as Phoebe took my old spot. Tom glanced at me and I shrugged. When I did, his gaze dropped from his friends to his ice cream.

I finished mine pretty quickly, considering when the rest of the group got here it ended up in an awkward silence. "Well, I'm gonna go," I said once I threw away my cup. "See you guys later."

Autumn nodded agreement, stood up and threw her ice cream away as well. "I'm done, too," she said. "Bye."

Travis rolled his eyes. "I guess I'm leaving to," he muttered. I guess I kinda interrupted a little side conversation he and Rhine had been having about God knows what.

"You don't have to do that, dude," I reassured him. "You can come home with Tom, or Mark, or...someone."

He glanced at me. “You sure?” he asked. He knew me well enough to know that something was wrong.

I immediately nodded anyway. “Well…alright," he agreed.

I glanced at Autumn, shrugged, and followed her out the door.

"Why the sudden rush?" she asked once we got outside.

"Phoebe is a bitch and I needed some space away from her," I said, glaring at the ground. What it did? I don't know, either.

"Is this about when she made you move so she could sit next to Tom?" she asked.

"You know how it goes," I glanced at her. "I always sit next to Tom. I have ever since the first day I met him."

"Well, I never thought it met so much to you," she shrugged.

I'm pretty sure I turned red, but I covered it up by saying steadily, "I just don't like change, okay?"

We got in her car and she sighed. "Listen," she said, turning to me before starting the engine. "I hate that whore as much as you do. But, she's Tom's boyfriend. What would you have done if you were in her position?"

I sighed. "I hate it when you're right," I grumbled.

"Don't worry," Autumn said, starting the car and backing out. "I'm sure Tom will come to his senses soon, and dump that son of a bitch for good. Then you and him can continue your relationship fit for an MTV show, where you both secretly love each other and do it in a broom closet."

My mouth dropped open and I just stared at her. "What the fuck, Autumn?" I asked incredulously.

She giggled. "Sorry," she told me. "I just had to say it."


	12. Please Take Me Home

A few weeks go by, and nothing much had changed. Me and Tom grow closer and we soon became closer than anybody else in the group, except for probably him and Mark, and then me and Travis -- we were the ones who were basically inseparable, but only in a best-friend-ly manner. Blink soon went into the studio to begin recording their next album, to be titled Enema Of The State. They only had one song done so far, Mutt, which their old drummer, Scott, had played on the drums.

So, just like it sounded, life seemed good for everybody. Travis and Rhine seemed absolutely smitten together, and it was really sweet. Oh, I didn't tell you? Well, after me and Autumn left the ice cream shop, complaining about Phoebe's bitchiness and stuff, we learned that Travis had FINALLY asked Rhine out after basically everyone but them left. Rhine was so excited, and Travis just seemed relieved she actually said yes and it wasn't awkward. Whatever. But it was obvious he liked her, too, so it was all good there.

As for Autumn and Mark, they seemed to have a “friends with benefits” thing going on, which is weird because Autumn is very blunt. Multiple times when I asked, "So what did you do last night? Me and Tom went out to go see if we could see any aliens." (We haven't done that yet, it's just an example. But we've been making plans.) She would say, "Me and Mark had sex." And everybody would yell, "TMI!!!" at the exact same time. Even Mark sometimes. But he didn't talk about it much.

One time, I confronted him over it. We were at the ice cream parlor again - whoop dee doo - and me and Mark had gotten our ice cream first, and the next one in line, which was, of course, Tom, had loaded up his ice cream and piled shit on to it, as he usually does, therefore holding up EVERYBODY -- so we had a few minutes.

"What's going on with you and Autumn?" I asked him.

He shrugged. "Ummm...I honestly don't know," he told me.

And that was our conversation. Pretty sick, right?

Tom and Phoebe seemed to be doing okay, although I didn’t really see Pheebs around very much anywhere. Not to say that depressed or saddened me in any way, shape or form -- because it didn't. Tom acted weird around Phoebe, and I didn't like it. I liked it when he acted normal, when he was around me and his friends. Phoebe had that air of importance around her, and Tom would do anything for her -- like, I'm not exaggerating. ANYTHING.

One day, when Phoebe had randomly disappeared and I didn’t really know what to do with myself, me and Tom plopped down on the couch in Tom’s house and were watching Dr. Phil. I was sitting upside-down on the couch and Tom was lying long-ways with his feet on my lap.

Dr. Phil was just about to yell the fuck out of some teenager with a huge drinking problem when Mark came in. “Hey guys,” he said with a grin, standing in front of us.

“What the fuck do you want?” I asked, my eyes dragging to his from the TV screen.

“Me, Autumn, Travis and Rhine are going to BW3’s,” he informed us. “So you’re coming.”

“But we’re watching Dr. Phil,” I whined.

“…And?” Mark laughed at me.

“I wanna watch Dr. Phil tell off this stupid teenager and say a bunch of insults involving cows and Texas,” I informed him.

Mark laughed at me. “Ah, Skye, you’re a weird one,” he informed me, glancing over at the TV.

“Do we have any say in this at all?” Tom laughed.

“Nope,” Mark stated with a grin.

I laughed a little. “Alright then,” I said as we both got up. “Let’s go then.”

We all headed out to Mark’s car, which was running out in the driveway, where Autumn, Travis and Rhine were already inside. Tom grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the car. “Let’s get some WANGS!!” he yelled.

I just laughed and followed him out.  
   
* * * * *

“Where’s Phoebe?” I asked Tom as we slid into one of the booths at BW3’s, technically alone. I’d found this counted as a date for Rhine and Travis, and Autumn and Mark were sitting with each other, so me and Tom just slid into an empty booth, our feet up on the opposite booths, drinking Cokes and eating cheese sticks. As for my question, I’ve found I’ve been asking that a lot lately.

“Sick,” Tom told me, taking a cheese stick and ripping it in half without meeting my gaze.  
           
“She should come out with us when she’s better,” I told him after a minute. “She can still hang around even though she doesn’t play in any of our bands.” And even though I hate her, I added silently.  
             
“She’s sorta anti-social,” he told me.  
             
I gave him a look, but he shrugged. “Also it would be kinda mean to leave you, y’know, considering everyone’s dating, besides…” He trailed off.  
             
“Autumn and Mark technically aren’t dating,” I reminded him.  
             
“Technically?” he turned me around so we could both see the pair. Mark said something and Autumn blushed and laughed. When we turned back around, he added, “Technically, they are.”  
             
“Whatever. I still think Phoebe should come with us.”  
             
He just shrugged a little.  
             
There was a few minute’s silence, and I was about to say something else, but then Tom pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. “I wanted to show you something,” he told me. “We’re gonna put it on our next album.” He unfolded it and smoothed it out and I watched him in astonishment. They had barely finished recording the New Album, let alone give it a name, and they were working on new songs already?  
             
He gave me the paper, so I took it and just read it.  
             
It was the song he had been working on at practice that day.  
Oh no, it happened again  
She’s cool, she’s hot, she’s my friend  
I tried for hours if so  
You leave me nowhere to go  
She’s unstoppable, unpredictable  
I’m so jaded, calculated wrong  
   
Please take me home  
Too late, it’s gone  
I bet you’re sad  
This is the best time we ever had

I hope, hope that it lasts  
Give in, forget the past  
Be strong when things fall apart  
Honest, this breaks my heart

Why did we have to go date?  
It’s too easy to complicate  
Be strong when things fall apart  
Honest, this breaks my heart, it’s so hard

Please take me home  
Too late, it’s gone  
I bet you’re sad  
This is the best time we ever had.

I glanced up at him to see he was staring at me. “You, ummm…you don’t…love Phoebe like you thought you did,” I stated. “Do you?”  
             
He nodded.

“You like…someone else.”  
             
He nodded again.  
             
I smiled a bit. “Tom, you’re so weird,” I laughed.

“Me? Weird? Oh, please,” he said, pelting me with a cheese stick. That serious moment was dissolved.  
             
I threw the cheese stick back at him and he threw it back at me, and it continued on like that until I accidentally threw too far to the right and it landed under someone’s chair across the room.  
             
 “Holy shit,” we squeaked at once, giggling hysterically and leaning over our food as not to look suspicious.  
             
“Wow, Skye,” he laughed at me. “Just…wow.”  
             
“That wasn’t my fault!” I defended myself.  
             
“Yes it was. You threw it. It didn’t even touch me.”  
             
“You started it!”  
             
“And you ended it,” he concluded. “Meanie pants.”  
             
“Pants can’t be mean,” I laughed.  
             
“If they’re on your mom they can.” (A/n: Oh, the conversations I have… xD)  
             
We burst into a fit of laughter then, unable to control ourselves. That is, until the waiter came by again – then we shut up.  
             
We ordered our chicken wings and then we spent the rest of the time talking and laughing. Tom told me where the fuck Atlantis was (72 miles northeast of the island Sicily) and I gave him a list of reasons why Kurt Cobain was really murdered. Then we talked about aliens and then I gave him a quiz on my phone me and Autumn made up in middle school about what color your soul was. Tom got a “dark soul,” and that made him laugh hysterically, but he nearly choked on his own food when he heard all the quotes we had came up with.  
             
“Hump a tree?” Tom laughed. “What the fuck was wrong with you guys?”  
             
I just laughed some more. “My favorite one is You only live once so just go fuck a duck.”  
             
“Oh my God,” Tom laughed. “I’m gonna die.”  
             
“Shhhh,” I tried to calm him, while I was giggling too. “Stop thinking of funny things. You won’t die, Tom.”  
             
“Shut up,” he laughed, pushing me away. “You’re making it worse.”  
             
“You’re welcome,” I grinned, taking a bite of my chicken wings.  
             
Finally, he was able to find some self-control in that interesting brain of his, and we ate in silence for a few minutes.  
             
That is, until we looked at each other and burst out laughing again. “For Christ’s sake, Tom,” I laughed.  
             
“Hey. Hey Tom. Hey. Hey. Guess what?”  
             
We glanced over to see Mark and Autumn standing at our table. Mark was continuously poking Tom in his sides. Tom was giggling hysterically.  
             
“What do you want?” I asked them with a laugh.  
             
“We’ve been here for two hours…?” Autumn told us, as if stating the obvious.  
             
“Oh shit, we have?” we said at once, which made us burst out into laughter.  
             
“Yeah, we should leave now, as we’re kinda done,” Autumn laughed.  
             
“I can’t believe it’s been two hours,” I laughed as the two went away and the waiter came by, handing us the check. “Tom, that was fucking awesome.”  
             
“I know,” he said, slipping some bills on the table “inconspicuously.” “We should do it again sometime.”  
             
I laughed. “We should,” I said, reaching into my pocket and pulling out a twenty, throwing it on my table. “Here.”  
             
He stared at it blankly for a minute. “What the fuck is this?” he asked me.  
             
“To pay for my food,” I told him.  
             
“No,” he said, pushing the money away. “I pay for food.”  
             
“No, you don’t,” I laughed, pushing the bill back to him. “Use it.”  
             
“No!” He crossed his arms and pouted.  
             
“Oh, for God’s sakes, Tom, take the fucking money!” I giggled.  
             
“No, I refuse,” he told me. “It’s my treat.”  
            
 We had a stare-off for a minute before I finally sighed. “Tom, I hate you,” I giggled, taking the money and putting it back in my pocket.  
             
“I know you do,” he told me with a slight laugh. “But I like paying for pretty girls.” He gave me a hug and I laughed, hiding the blush creeping up on my cheeks.  
             
“Tom, remember Phoebe,” I flicked him.”  
             
“Ummm, okay?” was his response, letting go of me.  
             
Pretty soon, the food was paid for and we all left as a group, walking out to Mark’s car, laughing and talking with one another.  
             
Me and Tom got in the back and I noticed just how long we had been there. I was actually kinda tired for once.  
             
I rested my head on Tom’s shoulder and he wrapped an arm around me. My stomach fluttered at the contact. Okay, so yes, I did have a crush on him. But he was dating Phoebe, and because of this, I took what I got – made the most of what I had. I enjoyed this feeling I got with him, and even though I tried to remind myself of Phoebe, I still wished we could do this every day.  
             
Pretty soon, we ended up at me and Travis’s apartment. We all said our goodbyes and I was about to leave before Tom grabbed my hand. “Let me walk you up,” he said.  
             
I just nodded. Travis and Mark gave me smirks, which I flipped them off at.  
             
“I think I’ll stay in here for a few more minutes,” Travis stated with a shrug.  
             
“Shut up, T-Rav.”  
             
“Whatever you say, Smurfette.”  
             
I just rolled my eyes at him and let Tom walk me up.  
             
When we ended up at the doorstep, I smirked at my friend. “What did you want to say?” I asked him.  
             
He stared at me for a minute before glancing down at his shoes. “I want to say a lot of things, but there’s a person named Phoebe that’s keeping me from telling them.”  
             
I smiled, reached up, and kissed his cheek. “I get it,” I told him with a smile.  
             
He smiled a bit, too. “We have band practice tomorrow,” he reminded me. “You’re coming, right?”  
             
I laughed. “Of course,” I told him. “I’ll see you then, okay?”  
             
He nodded and turned away, but then he turned back. “I have one thing to tell you,” he said.  
             
“Yes?” I prompted.  
             
“Phoebe…is in 100% perfect health.”  
             
I watched in total confusion as he hopped down the steps of the apartment complex and back to the waiting car.  
             
 What. The. Fuck.  
             
Soon enough, Tom was replaced by Travis. “Skylar and Tom sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”  
“What if I sung that to you?” I couldn’t help but laugh as I pushed my best friend away from me.  
             
“I’d enjoy it.”  
             
“Fuck you, Barker,” I laughed. And with that, we headed towards the elevator and up to our loft.


	13. Going Away To College

Skye,  
We're in the back. Take this with you so we don't attract stalkers.  
Mark and Tom.

I laughed a little when I saw this note taped to the front door of Tom's house. I tore the note off and crumpled it into a ball, stuffing it into my pocket while I headed out back.

She said that I'm not the one that she thinks about and  
She said it stopped being fun, that I just bring her down  
She said, "Don't let your future be destroyed by my past"  
She said, "Don't let my door hit your ass."

I turned the corner to the backyard and saw Mark and Travis with guitars and Tom....up in an oak tree. Mark did a quick bass solo (on guitar, though...) and repeated the chorus.

"SKYE'S HERE!!" Tom yelled excitedly, pointing in my direction.

I waved. "Where's Autumn and Rhine?"

"Oh, I see how it is," Mark pouted. "You wanna see them and not us."

"Yep," I joked, walking over to Mark and giving him a hug. Then I hugged Travis and I glanced up at Tom. "So," I said with a smirk.

He grinned back at me, swinging his legs and reminding me of a little boy. "So."

"Why the fuck are you up a tree?" I asked him with a laugh.

"I sing gooder when I'm in a tree," he announced, holding up a bunch of papers with lyrics and notes on them.

"Gooder?" Travis laughed.

He nodded and then held his arms out to me. "Skye, I want a hug!" he whined again.

I laughed. "Are you saying I climb up there?"

He nodded.

"I need to find Rhine and Autumn though," I laughed.

"No!" he whined, reaching for me again. "I get a hug first!"

"Just give him a hug," Mark laughed, pushing me towards the tree.

"Fine," I fake-sighed heavily before climbing up the tree and to the branch where Tom was sitting. I scraped my knee on the way up, too, making me mutter "Fuck" in annoyance, knowing it would start to bleed. But I made it up there...somehow.

"Can I have a hug now?" Tom asked.

I laughed and nodded, and he grinned before pulling me into his arms. I think we stayed there a bit longer than anticipated, but when we did let go, Mark and Travis had continued playing.

"I NEED A BAND-AID!!!" I yelled to nobody in particular, pointing at my scraped-up knee.

"THANKS FOR SHARING!!" Mark yelled back with a grin.

"BUT I'M BLEEDING, DICKWAD," I yelled with a smirk.

"Really?" Travis asked in his normal quiet voice, turning around and glancing up at me. I tried to show him my knee as best I can, and once he saw it, he tapped Mark so he could see too.

"AUTUMN!!!!" Mark yelled.

I heard a faint, “What?” coming from…somewhere.

“YOUR CHILD IS BLEEDING!!!!” Mark announced.

We were all silent for a minute before I burst out laughing. “Her child?” I laughed. “Wow, Mark.”

Autumn stuck her head out from Tom’s house, Rhine right behind her. “MOMMY!!!” I yelled. “LOOK AT MY KNEE!!!”

Rhine busted up laughing, too, and Autumn just looked at me weird. “Are you, like, on crack or something today?” I asked her.

“Yes, sir, I sure as hell am,” I gave her a smile.

Tom glanced at me. “Seriously?” he asked, his eyes wide.

I gave him a look.

“Oh. Never mind.”

“Yeah, never mind, dickwad,” Mark laughed.

“NEVER MIND YOURSELF! YOU WOULDN’T GET ME A BAND-AID, BITCH!!” I fake-cried into Tom’s shoulder.

“Ah, shut up, your knee is fine.”

“No it’s not!” I whimpered. “What if I die of blood loss? What if my leg gets amputated?” By now we were all in hysterics, Tom laughing so hard I was half-afraid he was gonna fall out of the tree, taking me with them.

“Then we’ll all be sad,” Travis laughed.

“My leg is still bleeding, you nimrod,” I told them.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Rhine sighed. “I have a question.” We all shut up and stared at her. “Why did we get called out here?”

“Because my leg is bleeding and I wanted a Band-Aid,” I smirked, leaning against Tom a little as he wrapped an arm casually around my shoulders.

“Get your boyfriend to get them for you,” Autumn suggested, smirking up at us.

I flipped her off and Tom just laughed a little. “PLAY ANOTHER SONG!!” I yelled.

“Yessir!” yelled Mark, saluting me. Rhine and Autumn smiled a little and sat down in front of Mark and Travis so they were sorta in a circle. Then there was me and Tom, up in a tree…

“Play Pathetic,” I told them.

Mark nodded and they started playing the song. I smiled a bit and rested my head on Tom’s shoulder, singing along with everyone else to the parts I knew. I liked spending time here, with my friends, not a care in the world.

After a few others, including Peggy Sue and Carousel, and a new song, called What’s My Age Again, we finally stopped and just started talking. It was random things, of course, as random as it could all get. Finally, we talked about maybe going out to see another movie again.

“We’ll get kicked out,” Tom pointed out with a smirk in my direction. I smiled back.

“But I wanna watch Enemy Of The State!” Mark whined.

“That movie looks gay,” Autumn told him.

“No it’s not!” He was acting like a little kid. It made me roll my eyes.

“Mark, shut your face, we’re not going to go see that,” Tom laughed at him, ripping a twig off from the branch he was leaning against and pelting it at him.

“But we went to see Elmo!” Mark whined.

“We’re NOT going to watch Enema of the State,” Travis told him, really loud.

There was a really long, sorta-awkward silence after he said that, everybody glancing around at each other. Finally, I started laughing.

And not just polite laughing. Or ha-ha-that-was-funny laughing. This was real laughing. I started cracking up so bad I felt like my insides were going to explode, and my sides hurt, and I couldn’t breathe anymore. And luckily, before I made myself look like any more of a retard, Tom started laughing, too, along with me.

Everybody else kind of looked at us weird for a few seconds before Rhine cracked a smile, glancing over at Travis, that smile immediately growing bigger. Then Mark started cracking up laughing too, and eventually Autumn giggled a bit too.

“Travis Landon Barker,” I said in between laughs. “Did you just call…that movie…Enema of the State?”

“I sure as fuck did,” he laughed, glancing up at me with a huge grin on his face.

“What the hell is wrong with all of you?” I laughed, leaning into Tom’s side for support.

“What the fuck are you talking about, something being wrong with us?” Mark laughed. “There’s nothing wrong with us.” He glanced over at Autumn, fake worry spreading across his face. “There’s nothing wrong with us…is there?”

“OH MY GOD!!” Tom suddenly yelled. Everybody jumped a bit and turned to look at him. His eyes were wide, a huge, shit-eating grin on his face. I’m sure if he wasn’t in a tree, he would’ve jumped up.

“What?” we all finally asked him at once.

“THAT’S IT!!” he squeaked with a grin. “We have our album name!”

My mouth dropped open. “Thomas DeLonge, are you kidding right now?” I laughed. “Please…please tell me you’re kidding.” It only made me laugh harder. Tears were streaming down my cheeks.

He could not be serious.

“Tom, that’s the best thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” Mark announced, somehow, with a completely straight face. “I didn’t know you had it in you, brother.”

“Are you seriously gonna call your album Enema of the State?” Rhine asked them with a grin.

“Why would we not?” Travis shrugged.

“What if you get sued?” I pitched in.

“I’m sure we won’t,” Mark shrugged. “Nobody’s gonna care about that movie in ten years anyway.”

“Who’s to say nobody will care about you guys in ten years?” I asked then with a smirk.

“Well, that’s true,” Mark chuckled a little. “We’re probably the worst band on the planet.”

Tom continued to stare at me. I caught him out of the corner of my eye and met his gaze. “What?” I asked him.

“We’ll still be around in ten years,” Tom told me, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me into a hug that made me smile.

“You will, now?” I asked him with the slightest smirk.

“Nothing’s gonna break us apart. We will. I promise.”

* * * * *

We talked until around 6pm, when the sun finally started to sink below the horizon. That’s when everybody decided it was time to retire for the day or so and head inside Tom’s house and just chill and shit. And, of course, everybody decided to be mean to us, and they all just got up and ditched us, going inside without even waiting.

“Fuck them,” I joked with a small smile towards Tom.

He laughed. “Yeah. They all suck,” he said, getting up and climbing down. He jumped off and turned towards the tree, waiting for me. I raised my eyebrows at him, though. “What?” he asked me.

“Aren’t you gonna go inside and ditch me?” I asked him, a small smile tugging at my lips.

He looked at me weird. “Why would I do that?” he asked.

“You probably would’ve done that if this was Rhine stuck in the tree,” I told him, my smirk growing a little bit bigger.

“Yeah, that’s ‘cause Rhine’s a meanie pants.”

“And I’m not?” I asked him with a laugh, starting my decent down.

“Well, you are,” he joked, “but you aren’t as bad as Rhine. God, sometimes she can just run her mouth.”

“Shut up, you’re talking about my bandmate, retard,” I laughed at him.

“I trust you won’t tell?” he asked cautiously.

I was about to reply, but suddenly I felt a pair of arms wrap around my waist and pull me down. I screamed a little – I couldn’t help it – but started laughing when I found myself in Tom’s arms. “God, you’re so weird,” I told him when I could finally see his face.

He smiled a stupid, lopsided grin. “Thanks,” he said, setting me down in front of him. I smiled back at him a little, my heart starting to race when I realized how close we were standing to each other. His eyes were so brown, they were a chocolate brown with the smallest flecks of black around it, and they were just so innocent…too innocent. His brown hair was almost the same color as his eyes, just a little bit lighter, and they were swept carelessly over his face, but it just…worked with him.

And God, that smile.

That stupid, perfect, awkward, lopsided smile of his.

I didn’t realize he was leaning in, and I was leaning in, too, until it was almost too late.

I felt so bad, but I had to do it. I had to do it for both of us. There was a pang of regret in my stomach as I did it, but I knew that somehow, it was for the best. I turned my head so he kissed my cheek.

“Tom, you have a girlfriend,” I whispered to him.

He sighed, and I glanced back at him. He was running a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry,” we said at once.

He glanced over and smiled the smallest bit, but it wasn’t nearly as good as the one that was on his face a few seconds ago.

“It’s just…” I sighed, not even knowing how to word it.

“I’m so retarded,” Tom sighed, burying his face in his hands.

“No you aren’t,” I told him, turning towards him fully now and taking both of his wrists. “Shut up.”

I didn’t know what else to do, so I pulled him into a hug. Tom immediately hugged me back, and it made me smile just the slightest bit at the contact. It felt so…right. Him kissing me felt wrong, but I secretly wondered what it would feel like if Phoebe wasn’t in the picture, and we were technically allowed to do it. If it didn’t feel like a disgrace to humanity, or if we didn’t have to keep it secret, to anybody.

“I’m sorry, Skye,” Tom told me.

“Shhhhh,” I told him, burying my face in the crook of his neck. “Shut up for a second. Forget about it.”

We stayed there for another minute before I slowly pulled away from him. It felt like he didn’t want to pull away, but he did anyways. I smiled a little at him because I felt the same way. “No hard feelings?” I asked him.

He laughed a little. “Yessir.” He saluted me.

“Idiot, I’m a girl,” I laughed, taking his hand and starting to pull him towards the back door.

“Yes ma’am.” He saluted me again, just making me laugh even more.

We came inside and somehow, everybody didn’t really look like they had been secretly watching us like stalkers. In fact, some dumb shit had put in Star Wars Episode Two. Not Episode One, or Episode Four. But Episode Two.

Not that I was complaining or anything. This one had the most Wookiees.

We both sank down on the couch next to Rhine. Rhine had glanced sideways at us when we came in, I knew that much. Tom was almost immediately engrossed in the movie, as I had predicted, since space and aliens and science fiction was, like, his thing, and so Rhine looked at me and whispered, “Be careful. He’s a player.”

I smiled slightly at her. “Thanks,” I told her with a nod. I had forgotten about that. He was the kind who didn’t really seem to actually care about any of the girls he’s dated. I wondered if I would be the same, or different. I wondered if he had pulled this trick on women before me. I wondered if I wasn’t the only one.

I glanced over at him at the thought and my stomach churned a little bit. He caught my gaze and glanced over at me, a smirk playing at his lips.

I smiled back and leaned into him. I sure as hell hoped I wasn’t, because I felt like I was falling for Thomas DeLonge.

And maybe it was a little bit too fast.

* * * * *

“You didn’t even stay up long enough to see the Wookiees.”

I felt somebody stroking my hair softly, and I smiled a little and snuggled up against the warm body I was pressed against, feeling at peace with the world. “What are you talking about,” I muttered, still half-asleep.

“Skye, wake up,” Tom laughed a little.

I opened my eyes to see me curled into his chest on the couch. The movie was over and it looks like people were about to, like, leave and stuff. I gave him a quick smile before noticing Travis and Rhine were standing near the door, twirling his car keys in his fingers.

“Do I have to move?” I muttered.

Tom smiled a little at me. “I’ll carry you out to the car if you want,” he said, brushing away the slight bangs in my eyes.

“I just wanna stay here,” I murmured, clinging tighter onto his shirt.

He laughed again as I closed my eyes, trying to get back to sleep. I felt Tom shuffle a bit before I heard his voice. “Maybe she should just stay here.”

“Tom – ” That was Travis.

“I’ll take care of her, man,” Tom told her. “You can come pick her up tomorrow or something. You and Rhine can sleep over.” I could feel his smirk through his voice.

“Listen to Tom, T-Rav,” I muttered, probably incoherently to everybody else in the room. “Tom’s a smart person.”

I could hear Travis’s laugh from across the room. Then he sighed. “Alright, Skye,” he said. “I’m not your father or something. Goodnight.”

“I want a fucking hug, bitch,” I told him, sitting up just a little and turning to fake glare at him.

He rolled his eyes at me, walked over and gave me a hug. “Goodnight Smurfy,” he said with a smirk.

“Goodnight T-Rav,” I said as he let go. “Night Rhine.”

Rhine saluted me like Tom had been doing before we had gone inside to watch Star Wars and Travis walked back over to her, heading over to the door. “Don’t keep her up all night, dude,” he joked to Tom.

“Does it look like she can stay awake for another five minutes?” was his response, motioning towards me.

I waved a little bit and then laid back down in Tom’s arms.

Travis laughed. “I see your point,” I heard him say. “Night Tom.”

“Night, man. See you later.”

“Will do,” said Travis, and then I heard an opening of the front door and then it being shut, and pretty soon, we were alone.

“Skye, can you walk up to my room or am I gonna have to carry you?” he asked me, shifting again.

“Carry me,” I whined.

He laughed a little. “Fine. Ready?”

“Yessir.”

He laughed again – God, he had an amazing laugh – and picked me up. “Let’s go.”

I rested my head on his chest as he carried me up the stairs. Pretty soon he stopped walking and I heard a door open before he turned on a lamp and laid me down on his bed. I opened my eyes a bit to see his room again. “It’s been a while,” I joked.

“Shut up, Roberts,” he smiled at me.

“Nah, thanks, I’m good,” I told him.

“Do you want clothes or…?”

“Yes please,” I told him.

He glanced around the floor before opening his drawers and pretty soon, a pair of athletic shorts and a Green Day t-shirt were thrown at my face. “Hey, that was mean,” I whined.

“No it wasn’t,” Tom smirked, grabbing his own clothes. “I’ll go to the bathroom. Yell when you’re done.”

“Yessir.” I saluted him again with a laugh.

“What’s with everybody saluting people today?” Tom asked as he headed out.

“Idunno,” I shrugged as the door was shut.

It took me about two minutes to change, and then I yelled for him. A few seconds later, he opened the door in a pair of boxers and a gray Nirvana t-shirt. Tom’s t-shirts fit Tom, but they sure as hell didn’t fit me. Mine was really oversized.

Tom laughed at me slightly. “It’s funny because I’m way fatter than you,” he joked.

“Shut up, Tom, you aren’t fat,” I told him as he grabbed my jeans and t-shirt and placed them on the dresser and turning off the light.

“Whatever,” he said, climbing into the bed next to me. “Still tired?”

“A bit.”

He was silent for a minute before he said, “Do you regret not going with Travis?”

I laughed at him. “Why would I regret that?” I asked him, wrapping my arms around his torso. “I’m not retarded. Also, I didn’t really feel like listening to Travis and Rhine’s extremely obvious late night plans.”

“But Skye…”

I raised my head so we were looking at each other, and we just kinda stayed there, staring. How did he do this? How was it possible I was so drawn to him? And how, in God’s name, did it not feel awkward at all, until we almost-kiss?

I knew we were leaning in again, so I quickly coughed and said, “Tom.”

“We have to stop doing that,” he sighed.

I sighed and looked away from him again. Now I felt bad. I really, really liked those few seconds. It made me feel like we were the only ones in the universe.

I really wouldn’t mind us being the only ones. Life would be much less complicated.

“I think we should go to bed,” I told him honestly, resting my head on his chest.

I could feel his smile. “Okay Skye,” he said quietly, pulling a blanket over us. “Night.”

“Night Tom,” I whispered, closing my eyes and drifting off into some perfect, happy world.


	14. Obvious

I woke up because something was moving under me. I groaned a little, still half-asleep, and with no energy to open my eyes.

"Shush," Tom whispered. "I'm gonna make breakfast."

"No," I muttered as he sat up, hugging him closer to me so I was on his lap. "Stay here."

"What kind of person would I be if I didn't make you breakfast in the morning?" he asked me.

"A good one, so I'll still have your body heat to keep me warm while I'm sleeping."

"Skye...." he started.

"Shush," I told him, mimicking him with a soft smile. "I just wanna sleep."

He laughed a little at me, lying me back down on the bed. "I'll be right back," he promised, kissing my forehead.

"You'd better," I muttered as I heard the door slam.

I sighed, rolling over and pulling the covers over my head. It was the best sleep I'd gotten for a really long time, and it was probably because I was pressed against his body. He gave me a sense of peacefulness, comfort, and sanity (somehow) and now without his presence...it sucked.

I tried to sleep for around ten or fifteen minutes but it didn't work out very well. I groaned a little and buried my face in his pillow, like a total fucking creeper. It smelled like him. Autumn told me that only stalkers know such things as what your victim's pillow smells like, so I guess I'm a stalker now.

"It's funny 'cause you haven't moved."

I heard his chuckle and sighed. "You fucking ditched me," I told his pillow.

"Sorry, I had to make you breakfast," he said, putting something down and crawling back in next to me.

"What is it," I asked him.

"Poptarts," he smirked.

"It took you ten minutes to make POPTARTS," I asked him, glancing up at him with a grin. "Really Tom?"

"Yep."

I laughed at him. "Oh God, Tom," I laughed.

"Sit up," he told me, and I did as told, putting my messy hair into a ponytail. "Here." He grabbed one of the Poptarts for himself and put the plate in my lap. Then he stuffed his face.

I laughed a little as I took one too, except I ate more inconspicuously, like a normal human being. "You're so weird," I told him, just like I always tell him.

He grinned. "I know," he said.

I smiled a bit and laughed. "When's Travis coming?" I asked.

"Later," Tom said nonchalantly.

"Later?" I laughed.

"Yep," said Tom with a grin as we finished off the Poptarts. I leaned into him and he smiled, wrapping his arms around me, pulling me closer.

"Hey Tom?" I asked him quietly, staring out the window at the new day, that looked cool and rainy.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"Ummm, I was just wondering this..." I said, not really sure how to continue. "But, I only always see your mom around."

He stiffened.

"...And I don't care if you don't want to tell me, but, I was just wondering...where your dad is."

He sighed, resting his head on my shoulder. "He goes," he sighed, blinking away some tears. "He, ummm...he drinks. He won't...won't come back for days, and when he does....it's never good."

I wiped away his tears. "I'm sorry Tom," I told him, hugging him tighter.

"I never had a dad in my life," he cried. "All guys have to have dads."

I started stroking his hair, then, in an effort to calm him down.

"Whenever he comes back I always hope..." He sniffed. "I hope he comes back so he can be a dad again. I still love him."

That's when it all clicked. Tom was 23. That was the thing. The reason he lived with his mom, was because he didn't want her alone when his dad came back. Whatever bad things happened, obviously, were kinda bad.

But I had to give it to Mrs. DeLonge. She coped well with all of this shit. And Tom, too. I never could've guessed they lived with this.

"Shhh, Tom," I whispered. "Calm down." I wiped away more tears from his cheeks. "Look at me."

He glanced up from the bed and stared at me. "You don't deserve this," I whispered. "Okay?"

He nodded and I wiped away more of his tears in an effort for him to see things my way. "Tom, one day, you're gonna be a dad," I promised. "And you'll be a dad to some really lucky kid, and he'll have the best dad in the world that doesn't make stupid decisions."

"But I...I don't know how..."

I hugged him tightly. "Mark and Travis will help you," I told him. "I'll help you. I promise.”

He smiled a little. "Pinky swear?" he asked me.

I smiled too. "I swear to God," I told him as we shook on it. Then I pulled him into a hug. "You're my best friend Tom."

"You're my best friend too, Skye," he told me.

I smiled a little and kissed his cheek. "Better?" I asked him, letting go.

He turned a light shade of red and nodded, making me laugh. "Come on," I said. "Let's make some more Poptarts. I'm hungry."

"Yessir," he said, standing up and following me out.

I grabbed a sweatshirt before we left his room. "Can I use this?"

He nodded so I pulled it on over my head before we left. We went downstairs and before we entered the kitchen, he whispered, "Don't worry. Mom knows why you're here."

I nodded as he pushed the door open. "Hola, Mrs. DeLonge," I greeted her as we walked in.

"Good morning, Skye," she smiled at me. "I'm sorry for the smell. Tom burned something."

I laughed. "That's why you took so long," I joked, poking him in the shoulder. He smiled a bit, glancing down at his plate for a second.

"I'm making pancakes," she said, glancing towards Tom. He smiled innocently, making me laugh. She rolled her eyes and turned back to the stove.

A few minutes later, Mrs. DeLonge handed us both a plate of pancakes. "I'll get syrup," she said, opening the fridge.

“Thank you,” I told her with a smile as she set it down in front of us.

“You’re quite welcome,” she smiled back, then glanced at Tom. “She’s nice,” she told him. “You should keep her.”

Tom turned red again, making me laugh. “I’ll be in the living room if you guys need me,” she told us, nodding towards the general direction of the other room.

“Okay,” I laughed. “Thanks.”

“No problem, sweetie,” she said, and then she disappeared with her plate of pancakes.

“Sorry,” Tom said, glancing at me with a shy smile.

I laughed again. “For what?” I asked him. “Your mom is cool.”

He looked at me weird. “Sure she is,” he said, before grabbing the bottle of syrup, opening it up and pouring like a quarter of the bottle onto his pancakes.

I laughed. “Wow Tom,” I grinned. “Good job.” His pancakes, were now drowning in syrup.

“Thanks,” he grinned at me. I poured just a tad bit less of syrup on my pancakes, and we ate mostly in silence.

Soon enough, we were done, and I got up with Tom and we put our dishes in the sink. “I think Travis might be coming soon,” he told me.

I nodded. “I’ll go get dressed.”

Tom nodded agreement and we headed out of the kitchen, into the living room, waving to Mrs. DeLonge, and then heading up the stairs, back to his room.

“Do you need clothes?" Tom asked.

I thought about it for a second. "No, I think I'm good," I said. "As long as I get to keep this," I added, hugging myself in his sweatshirt.

He laughed. "This is the second sweatshirt I've given away...sure," he said.

I grinned. "Yay!" I yelled.

He laughed. "Get dressed, creep," he joked, giving me a push.

I pushed him slightly with a laugh and got him to walk outside. "I'll call you when I'm ready," I told him.

He nodded as I closed the door. I smirked a little before changing back into the clothes I was wearing yesterday and pulling his oversized sweatshirt over my head. I glanced around and grabbed a bottle of Axe body spray and spraying it over my body as temporary deodorant before yelling at Tom that he could come inside.

He opened the door and laughed. "You used my Axe," he pouted.

"Sorry," I laughed as he grabbed the bottle and sprayed himself too.

"Your punishment is a hug!" he exclaimed, running over to me and nearly knocking me over in the process. I laughed and hugged him back, my fingers curling softly into his hair as he held my back.

"You smell good," he told the side of my face.

I laughed. "I smell like you," I told him with a smile.

"Exactly. That’s why I like it.”

I rolled my eyes. “Such a charmer, DeLonge,” I told him, flicking him lightly as we finally pulled away.

“Thanks, love you too,” I laughed as I slipped on my Vans by the door.

“I know,” I joked, pushing him slightly out of his bedroom and down the stairs. I grabbed my phone on the way out – it had a text from Travis. “He says he’ll be here in five minutes…exactly five minutes ago,” I told him.

“Aww,” he pouted. “Over already?”

I laughed. “I’ll see you later, Tom,” I promised him.

“I know. But I wanna keep you,” he said like a little kid, hugging me again.

I rolled my eyes at him. “Get off me,” I laughed, jokingly trying to push him away.

“No,” he said, holding on to me tighter.

“Thomas Matthew, release your friend.”

“Yes mother,” Tom immediately said, almost automatically. I grinned a bit in triumph when I saw his mom standing in the room, her hands on her hips, shaking her head at her son.

“And to think you kids wonder why I’m so worried about you,” she said with a slight smile, rolling her eyes slightly at us before passing us into the kitchen.

“Yeah, really,” said Tom, smiling at me with that stupid lopsided grin of his. “Mom! Skye’s gonna leave soon!”

“Bye honey!” was his mother’s response.

“Bye Mrs. DeLonge, thanks for having me over!” I called back to her, and nearly screamed when Tom picked me up and carried me over to the door. “Jesus Christ!”

“Don’t use the name of our Lord as an insult!” he scolded me, laughing hysterically (A/n: Weird times in language arts…).

“Yes mother,” I laughed.

“Good. Good job,” said Tom with a grin, setting me down just as I saw Travis’s car turn the corner down the street.

“Bye Tom,” I laughed.

“Bye Skye, can I have another hug?” he asked.

I laughed and nodded, hugging him quickly, yet getting lost in that moment, and pretty soon I could hear Travis honking his horn at the house, his car idling in the driveway.

I smiled and let go of him. “Bye Tom,” I grinned. “Thanks.”

“Welcome,” he said with a grin, kissing my cheek quickly. I’m sure I must’ve blushed or something, because I’m such an idiot, but eventually he let me go and I headed outside towards Travis’s car, getting inside the passenger’s seat beside him.

“Hola,” I greeted as he pulled out.

He eyed me up and down. “You smell like Tom,” he informed me. “And that isn’t your sweatshirt.”

I shrugged like it was nothing. Secretly I didn’t want to take it off.

“Are you guys together now?” he asked me with a devious smirk playing on his lips.

I slumped down in my chair, propping my feet up on the dashboard. I was wearing my white shorts from yesterday and my favorite pair of Vans. “Nope,” I said with an angelic grin.

“You will be,” I laughed, glancing at me again. “Trust me.”

I sighed, running a hand through my hair. God, T-Rav was right. He let me use his cologne and he gave me one of his sweatshirts…and we’re not even dating yet.


	15. Easy Target

Me and Travis spent a few days lying around at home, totally useless, after the practicing-in-a-tree-then-watching-Star-Wars incident. I spent most of my time on the couch, on my phone texting Mark or Tom (or sometimes Travis himself -- that's how sad I was), or watching TV, curled up into a ball and snuggling up in Tom's oversized hoodie that still smelled faintly of Axe spray from that morning. Travis teased me about it but I didn't care -- I wasn't taking this thing off. I'd be crazy to do that.

"Skye, we're going to a park."

I glanced up at Travis from my phone one day as he came downstairs, shaking his head slightly and fixing up his Mohawk. "Right now?"

"Yes sir."

I laughed a little. "Ummm, okay then?" I asked with a smile, getting up from my position on the couch.

"Bring the chips," he told me, going to grab his keys.

"The chips?" I looked at him curiously.

"Yep," he rolled my eyes slightly. "Tom wants a picnic."

"Oh Jesus."

"I know," he smiled a bit. I grabbed the bag of Doritos up on top of our refrigerator and met him by the door. A few seconds later, we headed out.

I was starting to think something was wrong. Something was very, very, very wrong in my brain somehow. I couldn't stop thinking about Tom, no matter what I was doing. It was sorta starting to scare me. I knew I liked him like a crush, but these feelings didn't feel like my feelings about previous crushes. I was extremely confused, but I knew one thing.

Tom definitely didn't feel the same for me.

He probably just wanted a new girlfriend or something, to switch it up a little bit.

So why wasn't I trying to push away these feelings?

I made Travis carry the chips after a few minutes of "arguing" and eventually slipped my hands into the sweatshirt, smiling a little because it still smelled like Tom even though I'd worn it for three days straight. I hadn't seen him since then, though, so I was actually half-excited for said "picnic."

Travis grinned at me as he unlocked his car. "Somebody likes you," he sang.

"No he doesn't."

"Retard, he tried to kiss you!" he reminded me.

"He was probably stoned or something."

"Oh please. Do you not see the way he looks at -- "

I haven't been this scared in a long time  
And I'm so unprepared so here's your valentine  
Bouquet of clumsy words, a simple melody...

My cell phone rang and I squeaked in surprise, making Travis crack up laughing. I smacked him upside the head and pressed "Talk." "Hola."

"SKYE!!!!" I heard from the other end.

I couldn't help but grin. "Tom, you're hyper," I informed him.

"He's not hyper, he's just stoned." Mark had taken the cell phone from Tom to inform me of this fact.

"Stoned?" I asked.

"Yeah, stoned."

"Told you," Travis laughed.

"GIVE IT BACK, MEANIE PANTS!!" I heard Tom pout in the background. "I DON'T SMOKE SHIT!!"

"What the fuck?" asked Travis, arching an eyebrow at me at the conversation he just heard.

"Don't ask," I muttered. Then I turned back to the other boys. "Is there a point to this call?" I asked angelically.

"Yeah." Tom obviously grabbed the phone back from Mark, answering me after he sprinted away a few yards, perhaps.

"What is it?" I asked.

"You're coming, right?" he asked me.

I laughed, putting my feet up on the dashboard, earning a glare from Travis. I didn't move them, I just gave him an innocent smile. He rolled his eyes and started to ignore me. "Yeah," I answered Tom.

"Did you bring chips?" he asked me.

"Yes."

"YAY!!!" he yelled. "I'm the first person you hug, right?"

I laughed. "Sure, Tom."

"YAY!!!!" he yelled again. I heard more noises, looking like he was running, and he screamed a little so I took a guess and decided Mark was chasing him down. "Gotta go Skye, see you when you get here, bye!" he told me all in one sentence, and then the line went dead.

I was probably still smiling like an idiot when I turned off my phone and shoved it back into my sweatshirt pocket. 

Travis smirked at me. "'Do you get to be the first one I hug?'" he imitated Tom.

"Shut up, Barker."

"My pleasure, Roberts," he smirked before turning back to the road.

* * * * *

"SKYLAR I WANT MY HUG NOW!!!"

I laughed when I saw Tom running towards me and Travis. In the background by the playground, I caught a glimpse of an actual picnic blanket, in which Rhine, Autumn and Phoebe (oh Jesus) were sitting on, and I saw Mark on the actual Big Toy, climbing places you really aren't supposed to climb.

I screamed a little, though, when Tom jumped on top of me and I fell to the ground, him wrapping his arms around my waist. I laughed, though, and eventually pushed him off. "Creep," I laughed, holding out a hand, which he took to help pull me up.

I headed over to the picnic blanket after telling Tom, Travis and Mark I'd be over by the Big Toy in a minute, and sat down. "Hey guys," I told them.

"Hola," they all responded.

"Don't look all flushed like that, Skye," Phoebe informed me without looking up from her phone. "He hugged everybody like that. He even kissed Mark."

I knew it! I KNEW they liked each other! I thought to myself before glancing over at Rhine (A/n: Okay, you know what? An avid Blink fan can dream). She rolled her eyes and mouthed, "Ignore her." I just nodded agreement.

Me, Rhine and Autumn talked about our band for a minute or two, before Tom, Mark and Travis came over and made me come with them to climb on the Big Toy. Rhine and Autumn gave me a smirk but Phoebe just kept texting.

"You wanna hide from Phoebe?" Tom whispered so only I could hear; when we were out of view from the picnic blanket he laced his fingers together with mine. 

"Sure?" I laughed a little.

He most definitely didn't need to be asked twice, because soon enough he was pulling me across a stretch of short green grass in the park towards the main road. 

I laughed at how stupid we probably looked. "What are you gonna tell Phoebe when she asks about this?" I asked him when we had started to slow down.

He glanced at me as we finally started walking. "We'll get to that when we get to that," he decided, his signature half-smile on his face.

I smiled, too. "She's not gonna be very happy," I reminded him, glancing down at our hands.

He gave my fingers a reassuring squeeze, making me glance up at him. "Well, she's not very happy about anything," he shrugged.

"Exactly. I don't want her mad at you."

"I don't want her mad at you, either," he told me, edging closer to me.

I sighed, running a free hand through my hair. This shit was stupid. Even if Tom was leading me on, Phoebe wasn't helping the cause.

At all.

"TOM!!" 

We immediately let go of each other's hands and turned around. Mark was sprinting towards us, breaking the silence.

"WHAT!!" Tom yelled back with fake annoyance.

Mark finally caught up to us and made a huge show about being out of breath. "Phoebe... wants to know... where you are," he told us.

I glanced up at Tom, who raised his eyebrows.

Mark smirked at us. "Run and I'll tell her I don't know where you guys went," he told us.

Tom laughed. "I owe you," he told him. "Thanks bro." They did a secret handshake before Mark walked off. Tom's fingers laced with mine again and I laughed. "Where do we go?" he asked.

"Wanna play hide and seek?" I laughed.

His eyes lit up. "FUCK YEAH!!" he yelled, perhaps a bit too loud. "I call seeking."

I laughed as he turned towards a tree, covering his eyes with his hands. "Thirty seconds," he told me. "GO!! One one thousand, two one thousand..."

I already knew where I was hiding. I glanced around before spotting a line of tall bushes and trees that was separating us from the blanket. I took off toward the bushes and I sat down behind them with a few seconds to spare. I kept myself covered up and amused myself by watching everyone else at the picnic blanket.

I didn't know where Phoebe was -- probably looking for Tom in the wrong direction -- but I guess it was good she wasn't there because the conversation was actually about me.

"They're so in love," Mark stated bluntly. I could feel my cheeks getting hot because I knew I wasn't supposed to be hearing this.

"Oh my God, I know, right?" Autumn muttered, rolling her eyes. "It's almost sick."

"He won't ever shut up about her," Mark told the group. "Ever."

Rhine, whose face I could see, raised her eyebrows. "More than Phoebe?"

"He never talks about Phoebe anymore," Travis piped up. "I can vouch for that. Why are they still dating?"

Mark laughed. "I don't know, but it's clear he likes her."

They all nodded agreement. "She likes him, too," said Travis. "She doesn't take off his sweatshirt."

"If only Phoebe was out of the picture..."

Somebody poked me and I turned around in fright, thinking it was Tom. "Oh," I whispered awkwardly. "Hi Phoebe."

"Where's Tom?" she asked me. 

I shrugged. "Idunno," I told her.

"What are you doing?" she wondered.

"I was... playing hide and seek." She raised her eyebrows at me. "I don't know where Tom is because I'm hiding."

She nodded agreement and before I knew it, she crawled out of there and turned to her left. Not ten seconds later, Tom entered from the right. It took all my self control not to crack up laughing at how perfectly they missed each other. "What was that about?" he whispered.

I just rolled my eyes. "Looking for you."

"She's doing a shitty job of it, that's for sure," he smiled at me. I smiled back as he took my hand. "Come on," he said. 

We crawled out from underneath the branches and took off running towards the playground again. It was within looking distance of the blanket, but Tom still didn't let go of my hand. I laughed as he pulled me up the stairs and into one of the tube things in there. I laid down awkwardly, still laughing. "We're too tall for this shit," I said as he laid next to me, incredibly close.

"I know. But it's fun. Look, we can spy," he said, pointing to the small holes across from us where we could look out and see everybody else eating and talking and whatever.

I laughed again. "You act, like, five," I told him with a grin.

"I know," he laughed. He flicked a dead leaf out of my hair from the bushes, making me blush the slightest. "What's my age again?"

"23?" I guessed.

"...Maybe," he said with a grin.

"Why are we hiding?" I asked him, resting my head on his shoulder.

"Because I don't want Phoebe to ask any questions," he grinned. "And also because I like hiding here with you."

I blushed again. "Shut up, Tom."

We were, in fact, silent for a few minutes, before he finally said, "You are... really pretty, you know that?"

I looked up at him to see he was glancing away, his face red. I smiled a little before saying, "You aren't bad yourself, Tom. ...Thanks."

He glanced over at me and smiled back. "Our relationship is so fucked up," he told me.

I laughed. "It is," I said as he wrapped an arm around my waist to pull me closer. "For real."

He smiled again. "I can't believe we're hiding from Phoebe," he told me.

"This was your idea," I giggled, flicking him jokingly.

"I know. Sorry."

"No, Tom. It's okay," I laughed, kissing his cheek softly, staying there an extra second. He blushed and smiled at me a little. 

That's when I started wondering if the feeling was mutual.

If he wanted his lips on mine too.


	16. GO

The days continued to pass, and eventually the temperature started to drop down the slightest. It was October soon enough, and Tom and Mark were planning a party at Tom's house while his mom was away for the Halloween weekend. They had invited what seemed like the entire town of Poway, and then some because they told everyone to bring their friends and to tell their friends to bring their friends. As I had established myself as part of their group over the weeks, people would occasionally come up to me, introducing themselves and saying they were gonna be at Tom's party. Most of them were guys who were obviously trying to hit on me, and whenever they did it when Tom was around, they'd get a glare and if they didn't they'd get a punch in the face, I'm sure. 

"How many people are you expecting over?" I asked him one day while we both jamming in his room.

"What do you mean, how many people?" 

I gave him a look. "At your house, smart one," I laughed a little.

"Oh," he said, starting up a new riff now. "Like... fifty."

"Tom, you probably invited fifty people," I informed him. "The people who are gonna show up are gonna be like a hundred plus."

Instead of realizing he made a terrible mistake and starting to freak out, he glanced up at me, his eyes wide. "For real?" When I nodded, he yelled, "AWESOME!!"

I just laughed, shaking my head at him. I knew the house was probably gonna end up trashed beyond repair, perhaps, and I felt really bad going behind his mom's back with this whole party because she didn't know a thing. She was nice to everyone and nice to Tom and always supported whatever he wanted to do in his life even though her life was evidently really hard. How was Tom not feeling the least bit guilty about any of this?

A few days later, I was hanging out with Travis and Rhine at Joe's. We were sipping milkshakes and talking randomly about music and life and the steadily-growing party on Halloween, when my phone rang.

"Who is it?" Travis asked.

"Tom," I said, picking up. "Hey bro."

"Hi." His voice sounded sad and zoned out and just all-around depressing; absolutely nothing like his usual self.

I glanced at Travis, who was raising his eyebrows. "Here, let me get out," I said quietly. He nodded, obviously seeing this was important, and let me out of the booth. I quickly walked outside and sat on the curb of the road, watching as a car passed every once and a while. "Tom, what's wrong?"

"I didn't... I did everything." 

"You did what?" I asked him.

"Everything. I did everything, okay?" I heard him sniff and I knew he was crying.

"Where are you?" I asked him, standing up.

"My house," he said quietly.

"Don't move, I'll be right there."

"Okay."

I flipped my phone off and went back inside the ice cream parlor. Travis and Rhine stopped talking immediately when I came in and looked up at me expectantly. "I gotta go," I said, leaning over Travis to get my coat.

"What's up with Tom?" Travis asked as I put my jacket on.

"That's what I'm about to find out," I sighed. "See you guys later."

"Bye," they said together. With that, I was out of there.

I figured Travis could just hitch a ride home with Rhine or something, so I got into his car and started the engine. While I was driving to Tom's house, I couldn't stop wondering what he was talking about. I just prayed to God he was okay.

I turned onto the street and sighed, trying to stay calm. I didn't want him to do something stupid. Maybe I was kind of overreacting at the time, as I'm looking back on it and all, but I had no idea what was going on with him. I was worried.

I breathed in a sigh of relief when I saw Tom sitting on the driveway of his house, his head in his hands. The sun was sinking down beneath the trees, turning the sky pretty pink and orange colors. It was around 8pm now, if I could guess. I sighed. I was a bit tired, and I had a feeling that Tom was a lot worse off.

I got out of the car and he glanced up at me, smiling slightly. It looked like it was forced. "Hey," I said quietly, walking over and sitting next to him.

"Hi," he said depressingly, staring out at the trees.

"What's wrong?" I asked him after a minute, wrapping an arm around his shoulder.

He was silent for a minute before he finally broke down. "They're done," he whispered, crying into my shoulder. "They're... it's my fault. Everything's my fault."

"Shhh, Tom," I whispered quietly, stroking his hair softly. "It's okay. Slow down please."

He nodded and sniffed again. "My mom and dad..." He started crying again. "They're getting a... a divorce..."

"What?" I asked, straightening up a little.

Tom glanced up at me and nodded, wiping away the tears streaming down his face. "It's all my fault," he cried. "I should've been a better son and I shouldn't have showed up at that basketball game drunk and got kicked out of my high school and I shouldn't have had sex and I should have kept them together and it's all my fault!" 

His voice broke at the end as I pulled him into a tight hug. I had no idea what he went through because my parents had always been happy together, but it obviously took a huge blow to Tom.

"It's not your fault," I whispered, keeping him close. "None of this is your fault."

"I should've been a better teenager," he cried.

"Do you think it would've really helped, though, Tom?" I reminded him gently.

"I like to think it would've," he told me.

I kissed his forehead softly. "None of this is your fault," I whispered. "I promise. I don't break my promises."

We were silent for a moment. I was hugging Tom tightly and Tom was letting everything out. I kissed his cheek a couple of times and that seemed to calm him down a bit each each time.

"Phoebe came over today," he said quietly, wiping away some more of his tears, even though they were all replaced by new ones.

"Why isn't she here?" I asked him gently.

"She couldn't really be bothered," he said softly. "She didn't exactly care. I told her... I told her you'd be a better girlfriend than she'd ever be. And she got pissed and... left."

My heart nearly stopped beating when he was done talking. Did he for real say that? 

Oh my God.

"Is that considered a breakup?" I asked him stupidly.

He smiled a little -- a real smile, the first one I'd seen today. "In my book it is. In her book... it's probably different."

I smiled back a little. "Thanks Tom," I told him. "That was really sweet. ...What you said, I mean."

"I feel bad, though," he told me. He had stopped crying now. "If she becomes one of those annoying exes that still obsesses over me, she might just obsess over you, too."

"Get a restraining order," I suggested.

He smiled a bit more. "Wouldn't that be a bit... too much?" he asked me.

We stared at each other for a minute before we both burst out laughing. My head was in my hands and Tom ended up leaning backwards onto the driveway. "Why are we laughing?" I was finally able to choke out.

"I don't know!" he giggled.

When we finally stopped, he sat up again and I said, "Do you feel a bit better now?"

He bit his lip and nodded. "That's why I called you," he said, glancing down at the ground. "You always make me feel better."

I smiled a little, pulling him into a side hug. "You always make me feel better too," I admitted with a grin.

I yawned a little and stretched then. "I'm tired," I told him.

He smiled at me. "You look cute when you're tired."

I giggled, slapping him playfully. "You're so weird, DeLonge."

"I know," he grinned. "But for real," he said, glancing down at the ground and turning pink. "You're, ummm.... you're beautiful. Whatever you do. Or... yeah."

I smiled at him a little. "Tom, you're so sweet," I told him.

He glanced up. "Really? That didn't sound stupid?"

I giggled. "No," I laughed. "It was sweet."

We were sitting close together now, and my eyes met his, and my heart sped up when I realized how close he was. I pulled down the sleeves of my long gray sweater and smiled as he wrapped his arms around my waist. I did the same around my neck for a second and bit my lip, staring at him with a small smile on my face.

"I love -- "

Tom was interrupted by the front door opening. We immediately glanced up towards his house to see Mrs. DeLonge standing there, a glass of some drink in her hand. 

"Go," Tom said immediately, letting go of me.

"What?" I said, confused.

"Just... leave. Now. Please." The look in his eyes was deadly serious.

"Why?" I asked him.

"I'll explain later," he whispered, kissing my forehead. "Please?"

"Where do I go?" I asked him.

"Down the street," he whispered, grabbing my car keys, which had been sitting behind me, and handing them to me.

"Thomas DeLonge!" I heard from his mom.

"Just go," he whispered, standing up and helping me up. "Down the street. I'll be down in a few."

I just nodded, totally confused, as I went over to the car, starting it up and driving down the street as instructed. I had more questions than I had answers, I realized, when I pulled over at the corner and stepped out, sitting down on the curb for the second time that day.

Ten minutes passed, then fifteen, then twenty. Finally, around half an hour later, I heard shoes pounding up the street towards me. I turned around and it was Tom, and he had a sweatshirt in his hands. I smiled slightly as he sat down next to me and handed it to me. "Thanks," I said quietly.

He smiled softly as I slipped it on, hugging myself in it. "It smells like you."

"I thought we'd switch out," he joked quietly.

"Good job," I said, holding out my arms. He smiled and hugged me tightly. I rested my head in the crook of his neck and sighed, my fingers curling into his hair. 

He hugged me close and sighed. "I don't want you getting hurt," he told me quietly.

"Tom, what are you talking about?" I asked him, pulling away slightly so we could look at each other.

"Sometimes, my mom... does shit," he stated quietly, glancing down, unable to meet my eyes. "And she's been doing a lot lately."

"What?" I asked. "No..."

"She's unpredictable nowadays," he said, glancing up at me again. "I don't want her to do something stupid around you. I promised myself I'd keep my friends safe. Especially you."

I blushed a little (okay, a lot), and glanced away. "Thanks, Tom," I whispered.

"You're welcome," he told me, pulling me into another tight hug. I rested my head on his chest and closed my eyes.

We stayed there for a minute before I heard my phone ring. I lifted my head and he loosened his grip on me as I glanced around and saw my phone sitting a few feet away. I reached over and grabbed it. 

It was Travis.

I opened the phone and pressed "Talk" as Tom wrapped an arm around my waist. I smiled at him when I said, "Hello?"

"Hey. Where are you?"

"I'm near Tom's house," I told him.

"Near Tom's house?" he asked, confused.

"Yes," I laughed. "I'll tell you later, okay?"

"Everything?"

"Yes sir."

He was silent for a minute before sighing. "Are you staying over there?"

"Ummm..." I glanced at Tom, who was staring at me. "I think... we're gonna come back here."

"Why?"

"Travis."

He sighed. "I know, I know. You'll explain later."

"Most definitely," I told him with a smile. "Bye."

"Bye."

I flipped the phone off and turned to Tom. "So, would you like the stay at the loft tonight?" I asked him.

He smiled softly. "It would be best."

"Okay. Sounds good. Come on." I pulled him up and I unlocked Travis's car. Tom got in the passenger's and I got in the drivers and we drove right back to the loft.

My heart was still racing.


	17. Ben Wah Balls

It was late when we arrived at the loft. All the lights were off so I guessed Travis was already sleeping. I grabbed Tom's hand and pulled him upstairs, and when we got to my room he immediately collapsed on my bed, mumbling something about being tired, making me laugh. I climbed in next to him and he rested my head on his shoulder.

That night, me and Tom had slept in the same bed, but that was only because I wouldn't let him sleep on the couch and he wouldn't let me sleep anywhere but the bed. Of course I didn't mind at all, but I think it was better for both of us if I pretended I did.

I kicked Tom out of me and Trav's loft around 11:30 the next morning, after feeding him breakfast and giving him wonderful ideas and advice to follow if Phoebe came back ready to kill him or something. Of course, he took that into consideration and thanked us both before leaving.

When Tom was done with and Travis had settled again with another bowl of cereal, I picked up the phone and called Rhine and Autumn. We were going to raid my closet today for Halloween costumes for everybody... and Autumn needed her hair bleached, and only my living space had the materials equipped with bleaching people's hair, considering I did it every six weeks (sometimes less).

Our costumes had been planned out for the past few weeks. We were showing "girl power" (I guess) and going as women in the punk rock scene. I was gonna be Brody Dalle from the Distillers and Spinarette; Autumn's hair needed to be bleached because she was going as Courtney Love, Kurt Cobain's old girlfriend and singer of Hole; and Rhine was going 80s and planned on being decked out as Joan Jett.

My closet had a crapload of clothes we could shred up, considering I was too lazy to throw shit out. So when Autumn and Rhine came over, we tore through my closet, looking for pieces of clothing that would be appropriate.

I grabbed a black tank top that I thought was just solid black -- instead I found "Blink-182: Crappy Punk Rock" in the front with a deranged-looking bunny staring at me. "I didn't know I had this," I muttered.

Rhine got up from her position on my bed and took it from my hands, looking it over. "Looks like Travis's," she said. Then she put it up to her nose and inhaled deeply. "Smells like Travis's," she shrugged. We all laughed and I threw the tank top out the door for my housemate to get later.

"I need to dye my hair black," I realized aloud, my hand shooting up to my purple hair. "I never realized that."

"Dye it black for like a month and then go back to purple," Autumn suggested. I think she was looking around for ugly 90s dresses.

I sighed. "We're gonna need some hair dye," I laughed.

By the end of the night, we were all ready for Tom's party the next day. My hair was now black and I bought hair-stick-up-thingy spray just in case I wanted a Mohawk or if I wanted to spike up my hair like in the Young Crazed Peeling video. I had black skinny jeans I ripped up, a tank top I cut off a bit and wrote "The Transplants" on it, a studded belt, red lipstick and Doc Martens. I had too many pairs of Doc Martens, I learned.

"You look scary," Travis laughed at me when I showed him my costume after Autumn and Rhine had left.

"It's not scary," I told him with a laugh. "It's punk rock."

"Well." He laughed at me. "Tom will not be able to wait to kiss that."

I punched him playfully on the shoulder. "Shut up," I told him. "You're not going as anything, so you suck."

"What's your point?" Travis laughed. "I'm going for the booze."

"That's why you suck," I told him, rolling my eyes at him before walking back upstairs to change into my normal outfit.

* * * * *

Later that night, the doorbell rang while I was making ramen noodles for dinner. Travis was out with Rhine, I had guessed, so I had been lounging around, flipping through TV channels and cooking my own food in short shorts and my Blackhawks sweatshirt all night long.

I put down the spoon I had been stirring the soup with and went to go open the door. I grinned at who I saw. "Tom," I laughed. "What are you doing here?" 

"I wanted to get away from Phoebe," he told me with a small smile. "She's just like..." He trailed off and his small smile turned into a grin. "I wanted an excuse to come over and get a hug from you."

I laughed, holding out my arms. He hugged me tightly and I laughed as he pulled me off the ground for a second. "You're just amazing, Tom," I laughed at him.

"I know," he told me with a grin. He put me down and stared at me. "Oh, hey, your hair's black."

I laughed at him. "I'm going as Brody so I had to dye it."

"Are you gonna have the Mohawk and shit too?" he asked me.

"I don't know. Maybe." I held a few strands of my hair straight up in the middle of my head to show him how far the Mohawk would stretch. "I don't know."

"You'd look cool with a Mohawk," Tom told me. "You and Travis could be twins."

"Shut up," I laughed, pulling him inside. "You want some ramen noodles?"

"No thanks, already ate," he told me, walking over the couch and picking up SID VICIOUS, who was still lying there. "You still have this," he laughed.

"I hug it when I miss you," I told him half-jokingly. 

He hugged it too. "Wow," he said with a laugh. "You're such a girl."

"Did I get a unicorn like you? No," I laughed at him. "You are the one who is a girl."

"Fuck you," he grinned, hugging me and my seahorse at the same time. "I missed you," he told me.

"I missed you too," I giggled a little, resting my head on his chest. "What are we gonna do when you start touring?"

"Bring you guys? I don't know," he told me. "Let's not think about that right now."

I smiled a little. "I'm gonna go eat my ramen noodles now," I told him. He let me out of his embrace and watched as I poured all of my soup into a mug. Then I sat down next to him on the couch and sat down and watched TV until Travis came home. I ended up falling asleep beforehand, though, and someone carried me up to bed. I was excited, though. Tomorrow was the party.


	18. Anthem

The next night, I had ding-donged the doorbell on the front step of Tom's house, rocking back and forth on my heels, a tiny bit nervous.

Tom's house looked pretty sick as always, white with black shutters. Two stories and a basement, three bathrooms and three bedrooms. His mom always kept it clean and nice, but she was out of town this week. Which meant, that when the door was opened, the house would probably be trashed. The music was pounding from inside, making my heart beat with excitement. I could tell from the cars parked up and down the sidewalk that there was, like, a crazy amount of people here.  
   
When the door opened, I laughed at Tom's suspicious expression. "Did you bring the beer?" he asked, his eyes darting back and forth like a druggie would to do is dealer.  
   
I played around, looking around also, before I finally nodded. "It's in my car," I muttered. "And since I had to lug it all the way over here for you, you have to help me carry it in."  
   
Tom looked like he was about to object, but then I asked him, "Do you want the beer or not?"  
   
He opened his mouth, but then closed it again and nodded. "Fine, I'll help you," he muttered.  
   
"Thanks," I said jokingly. "You're a great friend."  
   
Tom playfully rolled his eyes at me and closed the door behind him, spotting my car in the distance. "Race you there," he told me.  
   
"Oh, please," I said. "You do know I run in my free time, right?"  
   
He shrugged, raising his eyebrows. "You'd be surprised at the random things I happen to be good at."  
   
Running, and sprinting, for that matter, not one of them, I thought to myself. But I shrugged anyway. This counted as practice, right?  
   
We started at the end of the driveway, my car in sight at the end of the street. "Ready..." said Tom slowly.  
   
I rolled my eyes. "Set..." he continued. He trailed off for such a long time, I thought he had forgotten what he was doing.  
   
Until, of course, he yelled, "Go!"  
   
We took off running up the sidewalk. It was neck and neck for the first half of the race, but as my car drew nearer and nearer, I kept inching in front of Tom. I was in a full sprint now, dashing to my car, which was just a few meters ahead. Just one final dash...  
   
"I WIN!" yelled Tom as we flung ourselves at the car, touching it at the exact same time.  
   
"No you didn't, you nimrod!" I laughed. "I so beat you!"  
   
"In your dreams!" he yelled. "Now, where's the beer?"  
   
I opened up the trunk and Tom had a mini-spasm looking at all the boxes and boxes of alcohol I had snagged for him. "It's so beautiful," he sniffed,  wiping away a pretend tear.  
   
"You would think that," I muttered, playfully rolling my eyes as we grabbed all the boxes humanly possible for us both to carry, somehow slamming the trunk shut, locking the car and heading back to the booming light of the party in the middle of it all. "We can get more as needed," I smirked at him.  
   
"More will be needed soon," Tom told me.  
   
"Yeah, to fill your addiction," I joked, elbowing him in the shoulder.  
   
"HEYYY, stop ittt!" he whined like a little kid, which made me laugh and do it again, even harder this time. "HEYYY!" he whined again, bumping me back.  
   
"You're annoyingggg sometimesss!" I informed him, doing the best imitation of him I could come up with.  
   
"But you know you love me anyyywaaay!" he sang.  
   
"There are some days," I joked, laughing and shaking my head as Tom opened up the door to his house. "Some days."  
   
The place was amazing. Tom and Mark were probably in charge of the decorations...I would definitely get them to help me when I threw a party at my house. There were Christmas lights strung everywhere, and there was even a DJ playing some of Tom's favorite bands, like the Ramones, the Misfits, Green Day and, of course, Blink-182. Everyone was either dancing, drinking, talking, and, what I imagined in the upstairs hallways, making out. When I glanced out the window to his backyard, I saw he and Mark glammed that up, also, stringing Christmas lights in the bushes, on the infamous oak tree over there, along the house walls, probably, and just strung randomly everywhere.  
   
"Wow," I finally said after taking a good look around, soaking everything in. "This is amazing."  
   
"Yeah, I know right?" said Tom. "Follow me!"  
   
I squeezed past a bunch of people until we finally ended up in the kitchen. No one was really in there, except for a few of Tom's close friends, and my close friends, also. Mark, Travis, Rhine and Autumn.  
   
"HEY, look who showed up!" yelled Mark with a trademark smile, looking at me.  
   
"Uhhh...hey, Mark, how ya doin' on this...fine evening?" I asked, totally unsure of myself.  
   
He just laughed again. "You look like a fucking badass," he told me. "Tom should be all over that shit tonight."

"What?" asked Tom, glancing up from Rhine's phone to look at me. He immediately grinned. "Oh right, I forgot to say hi. Hi," he said.

"Hi," I told him with a laugh, hugging him tightly.

"You look like a badass." Tom let go grinning, looking at my outfit.

"Well, Brody Dalle IS badass," I told him, sticking my tongue out at him.  
Brought beer."  
   
"Woohoo!" he yelled. "Now THAT is a party!"

"What are you two supposed to be, anyway?" I asked Mark and Tom, who were both dressed as normal.

"I'm him and he's me," Tom told me. "We switched clothes because we're creative."

"Wow, last minute much?" I asked him, sticking my tongue out at him.

"Shut up," he laughed, following Mark over to where the beer was sitting.  
   
"How's it going?" asked Autumn as I hopped up on the counter next to her and Rhine, who had stopped their conversation when me and Tom came in. Now we were all watching the three boys dive into the alcohol like hungry bears.  
   
I laughed at the sight of this. "Pretty good, how about you guys?"  
   
They nodded agreement. "Great party," Rhine commented.  
   
"Yeah," I giggled. "Tom and Mark should work at HomeGoods or something," I said, looking around at the decorations again.  
   
Autumn laughed, too. "That store needs those boys' services."  
   
"Who needs our services?" asked Tom as he and Mark came over to our little circle, beers in hand.  
   
Me, Rhine and Autumn looked at each other and burst out laughing. "What?" asked Tom, obviously unaware of what we were talking about a few seconds before.  
   
"Oh, nothing," we all said casually.  
   
Tom playfully glared at us, but not before being pulled away by this random guy, probably to do shots. And of course, Mark followed.  
   
"He likes you, you know," Autumn informed me with a smirk on her face.  
   
I blushed. "He does not," I said, glancing down at my Docs with sudden interest.  
   
"Yeah, he does," said Rhine, elbowing me. "I know when I see it."  
   
"Tom doesn't like me," I said.  
   
"Dude," Autumn sighed, placing a hand on my shoulder. "This is coming from a girl who has known you a year before Travis' time, and has gotten you through the last fifteen billion boyfriends. Listen to me. Carefully." She turned me so I was facing her. "Tom. Likes. You. And it's pretty obvious, too. So tonight...make a move or something."  
   
"If he doesn't already," Rhine added.

"Plus," Autumn added. "He tried to kiss you, stupid." She giggled a little at the situation, making me roll my eyes slightly.  
   
Suddenly, as if on cue, Tom himself randomly burst into the kitchen, giggling hysterically, looking behind him as he made sure someone wasn't following him. Us girls all watched him in amusement.  
   
"You're not drunk yet?" asked Rhine, tilting her head to one side kinda like a dog does. Except what she said was more of a statement than a question.  
   
"I'm gonna do some harder shit later," he shrugged. Then he turned to me. "Dude!" he smirked. "Come with me to request a song or something!"  
   
I laughed as he grabbed my hand and dragged me away, whether I wanted to or not. I could hear Rhine and Autumn knowingly giggling, though, before Tom and I disappeared into the crowds of people.  
   
Tom held onto my hand as he dragged me through his living room, trying to get to the opposite side to talk to the DJ, who he was obviously tight with. I was glad, too. If Tom wasn't holding on to me, we might've gotten separated.  
   
We ended up taking the long way over there, seeing as I didn't feel like getting trampled by moshers who ended up in our way. But when we finally got to the DJ, Tom let out a sigh of relief and turned to me. "We're alive!"  
   
"High-five!" I laughed. He high-fived me and then turned to the DJ. "Hey Jake, what's up?"  
   
"Nothing much, dude, how about you?" the DJ asked.  
   
"We came to request a song," said Tom.  
   
"Well, that's just dandy," said Jake, which made me laugh. "Anyway," he added. "You must be totally fucking BLIND if you haven't figured this out yet, but songs with music videos ONLY - they end up showing up there." He nodded his head towards a huge projector screen. Whoa. I did NOT notice that was there. And it was playing a rather disgusting video of Green Day's "Geek Stink Breath," which had a guy getting a rotten tooth pulled by a dentist, a dentist I always thought looked like the band's bassist, Mike Dirnt.  
   
"Cool," I said, since there was really nothing much else to say.  
   
"How about an Offspring song?" asked Tom, thinking about it for a second. "How about 'Why Don't You Get A Job?'"  
   
"I LOVE that song!" I yelled.  
   
"Who DOESN'T love that song?" Tom yelled right back.  
   
"Alrighty," said Jake, putting it on the request list. Then he turned to me. "How about you?"  
   
I "thought" about it for a moment. But oh, please, I knew which music video to get. I wasn't retarded. "'What's My Age Again," I said, smirking at Tom, whose mouth had dropped open. "By Blink-182, of course."  
   
"You just like to see us naked!" he said as I started cracking up and Jake put the song onto the queue. In the new video, they're running around naked. ..Um?

"No, it's still a good song," I laughed, patting him on the head sympathetically.  
   
"Oh please," said Tom, rolling his eyes. "You know we're sexy," he said as we walked back out to a (surprisingly) empty high table. We sat down and waited, watching the Green Day video some more.  
   
"You wanna know sexy?" I asked him. He nodded. I pointed to the video. "THAT'S sexy," I said with a laugh. Tom flinched when the dentist finally pulled out the tooth at the end of the song, absolutely disgusted at how orange and bloody it was.  
   
"You're a creeper, you know," he said with a smile.  
   
"Yeah, I know," I smirked knowingly at him.  
   
A few minutes later of listening to a live version of "Blitzkrieg Bop" by none other than the Ramones, I turned to Tom. "So," I said with a smile. "Why the hell did you decide it wasn't important to inform me you're a fan of the Offspring?"  
   
He stared at me for a second before smiling too. "Well, why the hell did you decide it wasn't important to inform ME that you like to see Blink naked?"  
   
"Hmmm...," I pretended to think on that one. "Because I don't. And I love that song. And I know it forwards and backwards."  
   
"Sing it backwards then," said Tom, looking at me expectantly.  
   
I rolled my eyes. "I was making a point, idiot," I said with a smile.  
   
"I was making a point, idiot," he mimicked me in an extremely high-pitched voice.  
   
"You need to lay off the helium, boy, because I do NOT sound like that," I said, moving my head as if I was some black woman.  
   
That made Tom crack up so badly, he accidentally hit his head on the table trying to calm himself, which only made him laugh harder, me joining in. He just sat there awkwardly for a moment, still laughing his ass off, his head facing the ground so I couldn't see his face.  
   
"Are you okay?" I asked between giggles.  
   
He lifted his head up as if that would answer all my questions. There was a small cut on his forehead. He looked at me as if he was little boy and said, "Skylee, my wip hurts. Can you kiss it for me?"  
   
I laughed, pushing the bangs out of his eyes and teasing him by leaning in closer. I was an inch from his face as I whispered, "You have a cut on your forehead, not on your lip, you moron."  
   
"SO?" he said, sticking out his bottom lip in the beginnings of a pout. "Can you kiss it?"  
   
I sighed and rolled my eyes, kissing his forehead where the cut was. "Better, you creeper?"  
   
He nodded happily. "Yep!" he said.  
   
I rolled my eyes and glanced up as Mark came bouncing over to us, looking like he was at the borderline of sorta-tipsy to kinda-drunk.  
   
"Hi guys!" he squeaked like a little girl. "Guess what? We're out of beer!"  
   
"Whoa-ly fuck. Already?" I asked in surprise. He didn't answer me. Instead, he gave us a begging look, like that of a dog that wants a hamburger.  
   
Mmmm...hamburgers...  
   
"Alright," I said, reaching into my pocket and finding my car keys. "Come on," I said, looking at Tom. "You're helping me."  
   
"But WHYYYYY?" whined Tom like a kid, but getting up and throwing on a sweatshirt he had been dragging around with him anyway.  
   
"You want your beer or not?" I smirked.  
   
Mark turned to his best friend. "Go with her to get the alcohol," he growled.  
   
"Fine, fine," said Tom, giving Mark a fake-weirded out as he followed me out the door. Honestly, I don't think anyone, or anything, for that matter, could weird Tom out. It was scientifically impossible, kinda like how humans can't breathe under water, or dogs can't talk, or...well, you get it.  
   
We ran back outside. We didn't use the driveway, like normal people. Nope. Instead, we acted like retards, jumped the bushes bordering the front walkway, and attempted to dash down the hill. We both failed, though. Tom landed right on his head and I ended up rolling down the hill. "Look out!" I giggled. "I'm about to run over you and I can't control myself!"  
   
Tom looked at me and started cracking up. "You're a perv," he told me.  
   
"Coming from the perviest," I smirked at him.  
   
"Thanks! I really do try!"  
   
"I know you do," I muttered, getting up and waiting for him to get up, too.  
   
After a few seconds, he staggered to his feet, pretending to glare at me. "Thanks for helping, perv," he told me.  
   
"You're welcome, King of All Pervs," I said with a smirk. I inspected him closely. "Shit, Tom," I muttered. "Your lip is bleeding."  
   
"HA!" he yelled. "And I'M the - wait, it honest-to-God is?" he asked.  
   
I nodded and he put a finger up to his lips. "Oh shit," he said, taking it away and looking at the blood. "Kiss it, Skylee!" he pleaded like a kid again, opening his arms out to me.  
   
I laughed. "Go find your mommy, random child," I joked. He pouted at me, but I could tell he was trying really hard not to laugh or smile.  
   
"Fine," I finally gave in. "I will give you a HUG."  
   
"Hugs make everything better!" said Tom, his arms still open to me.  
   
"I see I'm not the only one who has seen the Elf movie," I said as I gave him a hug, which he gladly returned.  
   
"Hell yeah!" he smirked.  
   
"Come on," I said after a REALLY long minute, finally letting go of my friend. "Let's get the beer."  
   
And with that he followed me out to the car.

* * * * *

Ten minutes later and we still had more alcohol in the trunk. I laughed as we saw the end of the "What's My Age Again?" video playing as we came back inside from our little "adventure." "We WOULD go to my car to get beer long enough to miss both our requested songs," I said matter-of-factly.  
   
Tom gaped and stared at the screen. "NO!" he yelled like it was the end of the world. "I MISSED MY OFFSPRING!!"  
   
I started cracking up at that (maybe I am a perv...it's all because I hang out with Tom and Mark and their friends, though) as people gave us random looks, which we ignored.  
   
As we walked into the kitchen and set the boxes of beef down (pleasing Mark lots), Tom said, "Well, at least your innocence hasn't been scarred by seeing Blink naked on the big screen."  
   
I rolled my eyes, cracking open a beer myself as I did so.  
   
Twenty minutes later?  
   
"You're still a perv."  
   
"Not as bad as you."  
   
"Oh, please. Have you seen you?"  
   
We were probably drunk, Tom and I, considering we were trying to decide who was more perverted, which could never really be determined. What a nice, purposeful life I had, huh?  
   
"Take it outside," said slightly drunk Rhine with a giggle.  
   
I shot her a look but was already being pushed out the door with Tom by an extremely high and hyper Mark.  
   
"I get locked out at my own party," said Tom as Mark slammed the door shut behind us, pretending to be mad. "This is the WORST DAY EVER!!"  
   
"Tom, please don't go emo on me. I can't believe I'm saying this" - I put my hands on his shoulders - "but you are the last bit of sanity...I have..." I couldn't finish because we both busted up laughing. Tom? Even remotely sane? Gimme a break.  
   
"Nice one, Skylar!" said Tom in between giggles. He punched me in the shoulder playfully really hard, still laughing.  
   
"Hey!" I yelled, punching him back. We started running around like lunatics, chasing each other around the yard  for a few minutes, until we collapsed on the ground a few minutes later, out of breath and tired (alcohol does that to you).  
   
"Hey Tom?" I said randomly as I looked up at the stars.  
   
"Yeah?" he asked, turning his head to look at me.  
   
I had my phone out. I gave him an earbud and he put it in his ear without hesitation. "Whaddaya wanna listen to?" I asked with a smirk.  
   
"JUSTIN BIEBER, KATY PERRY, LADY GAGA AND USHER!" he yelled.  
   
I cracked up. "Don't say those names here," I hissed, looking around as if Nazis could hear us and were surrounding us as we spoke. "We'll get beat up."  
   
"That's why I was kidding," he giggled.  
   
I rolled my eyes at him.  
   
"Your biggest playlist consists of...?" he prompted me. We were silent for a moment, staring at each other, before bursting into a fit of giggles. Alcohol would do this to you. Plus we were both pervs. What did you expect...?  
   
"Seriously," he said.  
   
I was still giggling. "Green Day," I said. "But I don't wanna listen to them." I started fake-crying. "Please don't make me listen to them!"  
   
"Looks like the fate of the galaxy is in my hands," said Tom in a very creepy Darth Vader-like voice, which made us giggle again.  
   
"Oh, I know!" I said with a smirk. "Let's listen to YOU!"  
   
"Yay!" he squealed like a little girl.  
   
"Choose a song," I said, handing him the phone. "I'm too lazy to. They're all too good. Also, please don't hack into the Pentagon while I trust you with my phone."  
   
"Wouldn't dream of it," he grinned.  
   
A few minutes later he turned it to "Adam's Song." "Aww!" I fake-whined. "This song's too sad!"  
   
"You want me to pick it or not?" he smirked.  
   
"Gimme it," I said, and turned it to "What's My Age Again?" which made us start giggling all over again.  
   
"Change it back to Adam's Song," I instructed after thirty seconds of the song, already sick of it. "Let's make fun of Mark's voice!"  
   
"Yay!" squeaked Tom. We turned it back to "Adam's Song" and started squealing our imitations of our friend.  
   
"I never conquered, rarely came  
Tomorrow holds such better days  
Days when I can still feel alive  
When I can't wait to get outside  
The world is wide, the time goes by  
The tour was over, I'd survived  
And I can't wait 'til I get home  
To pass the time in my room a - "  
   
"STOP IMITATING ME, YOU MORONS!" yelled Mark out the door before we had even finished the chorus. As he slammed the door shut, we started giggling again. "The best part was he knew it was him," he smirked, looking at me.  
   
The song soon changed to "Aliens Exist."  
   
"Yay!" I joked. "Now we can make fun of Tom's voice!"  
   
"OR, OR, OR," said Tom, putting his hand over my mouth, successfully stopping me from starting. "We could do it like Steve Urkel from that one show."  
   
"Oh my God!" I said, a smile spreading across my face as I figured out what show he was talking about. "That show fucking sucked!"  
   
He laughed. "Hey Mom, there's something in the back room!" we said, holding our noses (or, to be more specific, each other's noses) to sound like Steve Urkel. "Hope it's not the creatures from above!"  
   
We couldn't even get through the first verse without cracking up insanely, letting go of each other's noses and just rolling around for a minute, making sure to stay relatively close to each other since we were sharing earbuds.  
   
"That's hilarious," he giggled.  
   
I brightened up a little. "Let's make fun of Mark's voice from Dammit!"  
   
He giggled as I turned it to the song "Dammit" and we started singing in really husky, scratchy, manly voices.  
   
"And it's happened once again  
I'll turn to a friend  
Someone who understands  
Sees through the master plan  
But everybody's gone  
And you've been there for too long  
To face this on your own  
Well, I guess this is - "  
   
"STOP IMITATING ME!" Mark yelled again, which just made us crack up more as he slammed the back door shut.  
   
"Oh my God," I giggled as we started rolling around again. "Too fucking funny."  
   
I turned it to "All the Small Things" this time. We didn't screw it up this time around, though. We just sat there, listening to Tom's shitty yet really good voice.  
   
We actually started singing along.  
   
"All the small things  
Truth care, truth things  
I'll take one lift  
Your ride, best trip  
   
Always, I know  
You'll be at my show  
Watching, waiting  
Commiserating  
   
Say it ain't so  
I will not go  
Turn the lights off  
Carry me home."  
   
We fell silent during the "na na na" part and he turned to me. "You have am awesome voice."  
   
"And we don't sing the 'na na na's?" I questioned, raising an eyebrow at him.  
   
He shrugged. "That's the dirty work. That's what Mark sings." I laughed.  
   
We fell silent again, this time for the rest of the song, just watching the stars.  
   
Until, of course, the chorus at the end, when Tom propped himself up on his elbows so he was staring at me.  
   
I raised my eyebrows and stared at him right back. "Yes?" I asked with a smirk.  
   
"Nothing," said Tom slowly.  
   
He just kept staring at me, though. And I just kept staring at him right back. "You sure?" I asked slowly.  
   
He nodded, still staring at me. What a weirdo.  
   
Suddenly? Could I even call it that? It was much faster than "suddenly." It could probably be classified as "random." But in any means, Tom leaned down and just kissed me. Right there. On the grass. "All the Small Things" was still playing, but now we weren't singing. Or talking.  
   
Tom just took a huge step over the friendship line and kissed me.

And this time, I kissed him back.

Hard.


	19. Reckless Abandon

It was an amazing kiss.

That's really all I could say to describe it. It's all I had ever thought it to be and more, and now that Phoebe was out of the picture, I had no regrets. No regrets about anything, I thought as my fingers curled into his shirt. It was just... amazing, the way we sorta melted together. I loved it.

There was something about this kiss, too. Something about him. Last time I kissed a guy, it did not feel like this. I didn't enjoy it like I was. I wasn't savoring every single thing that happened like now.

And the feeling of Tom's body over me...last time a guy did that my heart wasn't racing like this.

He finally let go for a second, breathing sort-of hard, looking down at me.

"Well," I said, breaking a silence (not an awkward one, that's for sure). "You sure do get your point across rather fast."

He smirked. "Yeah...I kinda like you," he said.

I raised my eyebrows. "No kidding," I said.

"So you like me back, right?" he asked hopefully.

"If I didn't like you back, would I do this?" I asked, kissing him again, him leaning down on me again, except this time he used his tongue... of course. It's just Tom.

"Yeah, you probably wouldn't let me do that," Tom grinned, pulling away just for a second to answer my original question.

"Uh-huh," I said, pulling him in again. This time, it was my tongue.

Oh, and how exactly did it feel, being kissed by Tom DeLonge of Blink-182?

Ummm... fucking amazing.

He finally let go and stared at me again. "Stop doing that!" I whined in a little kid voice. "You're scaring the hell out of me!"

He giggled again. His giggles were cute. "And what's your excuse?" he asked, also like a little kid.

"I was making out with Tom DeLonge!" I said (still kid voice).

"And I was making out with Tom DeLonge's best friend and soon-to-be girlfriend, Skye Roberts!" he squeaked. I grinned at that. "So that's a yes?" he asked me. I smiled and nodded again.

"WOOHOO!" he yelled.

"Calm down there," I joked. "I swear to God if you break any of my ribs my dad will be at your neck..."

"Oh shit! Sorry," he said, immediately getting off me, which only made me laugh harder. "What?" he asked.

I flipped us over so I was on top. "Works every time," I smirked.

"Fuck you!" he said.

"Sorry, I've only been your girlfriend for about three minutes, I'm not doing that," I smirked, kissing him again.

"But you will, right?" asked Tom in between kisses.

"No," I smirked.

"WHAT?" he yelled, pulling away in horror. 

I started laughing again. "Kidding," I said.

"You suck," he said.

"Don't make me say it," I said, smiling wider.

"No," he said. "I will. Say it. Come on. You know you want to..."

"You swallow," I said as my comeback.

We stared at each other for a moment and then busted up laughing, for like ten minutes. I'm sure the neighbors would be pleased to wake up in the middle of the night to our laughter, rolling around in the grass like dogs because of the perverted thing I just said.

Yeah, the neighbors would be pleased, to say the least.

They'd also be pleased that me and Tom were together, and now, his arm around my shoulder as we stared out at the stars randomly, everything seemed at peace with the world.

Even me.

We spent the next fifteen minutes randomly talking; what we wanted to stay the same and what we wanted to change in our relationship. Sure, call it stupid, pointless and boring, but at least I'm not boring you with the details.

I'll just give you a quick recap (smirks).

So basically: me and Tom will totally act exactly the same around each other as we did before he kissed me, except for the kissing and the makeouts and stuff. That's about as short as I can summarize it, so, yeah.

"High-five for aliens!" yelled Tom randomly after we had finished talking about that.

I laughed and high-fived him, our fingers lacing at the end, and Tom pulling me towards him. "Aliens exist, you know," he whispered.

"I know," I smirked. "You wrote a song about it."

"You believe, right?" he asked.

I glanced up at the sky curiously. Did I? "Yeah," I said. "Totally. 100%."

"Good," he said as I rested my head on his chest. "'Cause it would fucking suck if you didn't."

* * * * *

Picture this when you wake up.

You're lying in a random bed. Your face is smashed up against someone's chest. Someone's arm is around you. And as memories of last night came back into your head, you wished you hadn't woken up, so you could stay like this forever.

Oh, hangover.

Oh shit...I suddenly thought. I wasn't wearing my skinny jeans and Green Day t-shirt I was wearing last night...

"Went out drinking late last night, I had a glass, but now the morning light has come and kicked my ass, whoa-oh-oh!" Tom sang.

...I was wearing a light blue tank top and black boxer shorts. WTF? I thought. Where did Tom get my PJ's?

I guess we'll never know....

"You changed me, didn't you?" I asked.

He shrugged, grinning with delight. I was gonna kill him...maybe. "It was fun," he said. "And it seemed needed."

I flicked him. "You suck."

"You swallow. Anyway. I have the worst hangover ever!" he continued to sing. "I'm crawling to the bathroom again! It hurts so bad, I'm never gonna drink again, da dada da, da, dadadada da!"

I burst out laughing then. It was unable not to laugh. Then I laid my head back down on his chest. "Who's bed is this?" I smirked. "It better be yours."

"It is," said Tom, hugging me tighter. "You fell asleep at, like, 1am, and I ended up dragging you up the tree and into your room because if I used the door like a normal person you would've woken up because the party was still going full blast."

"You're so weird," I sighed.

"Yeah, well, you like me anyway." Tom rolled on top of me and I smirked at how not sexy this was. He was wearing a sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his head and boxers too.

He leaned down and kissed me again. It was the same feeling I had felt last night. It was weird, but I was welcoming it.

His tongue slipped into my mouth as he put his hands around my waist. I put my hands around his neck, because that seemed to be what we were doing right now.

I found it extremely fun, until...

"Hey Tom, do you have any Ad - WHOA."

I immediately let go and Tom rolled off me to see who it was, and there was none other than Mark Hoppus, standing at Tom's bedroom door, his mouth dropped open, staring at us with the classic Mark Hoppus look.

"What the hell do you want, man?" we asked at the same time, which made us burst into a fit of giggles again. I thought the beer had worn off...?

"Are you guys TOGETHER?" asked Mark.

We looked at each other and started cracking up again. I had no idea why. It was pretty random, but pretty funny at the same time. It was probably because of the events of last night, or maybe because of Mark's extremely shocked facial expression which made me giggle.

A few minutes later, we choked down our laughter to stare at him again. "Is that a yes...?" he asked, obviously confused.

We slowly nodded our heads.

"YES!" he yelled. "I WON, TRAVIS!! I WON THE FUCKING BET, BI-OTCH! GIMME FIFTY BUCKS!! NOWWWWWW!!"

So much for wanting Advil, I thought, staring at him as he went crazy as hell, jumping out the door to find Travis.

"Well, that woke me up," I smirked.

"Aww!" pouted Tom. "My kiss didn't wake you up!"

"It did," I smirked. "Mark woke we up the crappy, old fashioned way, and you woke me up the nice, regular person way."

"But I'm not a regular person and you know it!" said Tom, giggling.

"Yeah, well," I sighed. "Neither is Mark."

In response, Tom got on top of me and kissed me again. I closed my eyes as I put my hands around his neck again, Tom's arms resting on my waist, as his tongue slipped into my mouth again. He smiled through the kiss, which made me smile back. Until, of course...

"HEY LOVEBIRDS!! STOP EATING FACE AND GET THE FUCK UP! WE'RE GOING TO IHOP!"

Who was this person? a) Quiet, calm Travis. My best friend, who has made a pact with me to not jack up my love life as long as I don't jack up his. b) Johnny the cat, named after Johnny Ramone, sleeping peacefully in the corner of the room. Or c) Mark Hoppus, who was gonna get it later.

In the words of TruTV, the answer is always C.

I groaned and let go of him as Tom got off of me again.

"I'm gonna remember this when he gets a girlfriend," I smirked. "So far he's done it...twice."

Tom laughed like a maniac and got up, going into the bathroom. I took this time to magically put my clothes on from last night: Green Day t-shirt, black skinny jeans, and Mike Dirnt MacBeths. I finished lacing my shoes just as Tom came in, immediately saddened I was already dressed. "Too slow!" I smirked.

"You sicken me," he hissed, but it was messed up because we started giggling again. He kissed me as I made my way into the bathroom. Now he smelled like Axe spray and aftershave, which smelled really nice.

After brushing my teeth and shit in the bathroom, I came back out, all ready to go. Now I just needed to find my hat. "Where is it?" I asked Tom.

Tom's hands were behind his back, and he was suspiciously rocking back and forth on his heels, his bangs angelically spread all over his brown eyes, which made him look so innocent.

"I know you have my hat," I joked, staring him down.

"What if it's my...hat...?" he asked, unsure of himself, as his eyes darted around the room.

"Oh please," I smirked. "You're not Patrick Stump."

"But I wanna be!" he said like a kid.

"No you don't."

He opened his mouth to argue, but then shrugged. "True," he said.

"You still have my hat."

"Nope."

"Yeah."

"Nope."

"Yeah."

"You mean this?" He held up my hat for me to see. Yep, that was the one, with the skulls and crossbones all over it.

"Give it to me," I giggled.

He shook his head, hugging it against his chest. "It's mine now."

"Give it to me!" I laughed, running over to him, but he ran away. We chased each other around the room, until, of course, Tom found it funny to run downstairs with it. "GIVE IT!" I yelled in between my laughter. 

Tom shook his head and ran into the living room, where Mark, Travis, Rhine and Emma were all screwing around. Well, Travis and Rhine were obviously not screwing around, considering they were making out on the couch. Mark was counting money (perhaps Travis's fifty bucks...?) and Emma was singing Green Day.

"Caution, police sign, you better not cross!" she sang.

"Is it the cop or am I the one that's really dangerous?" I sang along with her. 

Suddenly, Tom tripped over something (probably the coffee table) and fell to the ground, laughing his head off, as I fell on top of him.

"Aww, lovebirds!" Mark cooed, looking up from his money for a split second.

We looked at each other. "Three," we said together.

"What?" asked Mark.

"Oh, nothing," we said, all nonchalant. I turned to Tom. "Now give me my hat back!" I said.

"Why?" he said.

"Because it's mine!"

"So?"

"So it's mine!"

He shook his head like a little kid, his bangs falling in his eyes again. I think he does that when he doesn't want people to hurt him.

"Give it," I said, reaching under his chest to grab my hat. I felt it, grabbed onto it and started pulling. He wouldn't let go. "Last resort," I smiled. I started tickling him, making him giggle like an idiot. He couldn't stop, either. He was basically begging for mercy, with happy tears in his eyes. He loosened his grip on the hat and I started pulling.

Tom made a noise that sounded like a mouse getting his neck snapped in a mouse trap as I pulled the hat out from under him, putting it on my head. "HA!" I yelled.

"It was still fun though," said Tom like a little kid. He masters at doing little kid voices.

"Come on people," said Mark, standing up. "Let's go to iHop!"

Everyone wooted at that and they all got up, filing outside. I got off of Tom in the now-empty room and was about to follow everyone out but Tom pushed me gently against the wall.

"What do you want?" I smirked underneath my hat.

"I need a kiss since I gave you your hat back," he said, smiling.

"Fine," I said, rolling my eyes playfully. He kissed me softly. I closed my eyes, hoping this moment would last forever.

"HURRY UP, KIDS!!" I heard Mark yell out the door like an old man. 

I let go and smiled. "Four," we said together. And we walked out of there, our fingers laced together, with smiles on our faces.

* * * * *

Mark's convertible, though extremely sweet, might have been able to fit five people comfortingly, but definitely not six. So Rhine sat illegally on Travis's lap in the front passenger's seat, continuing to make out, even though no one really needed to see it. And the rest of us got crammed into the back.

Once again, Emma was singing Green Day in the back seat, next to us. "Sit around and watch the tune, but nothing's on!" she yelled. Oh, I mean...sang.

I laughed and rested my head on Tom's chest, watching the trees and houses and people and stuff go speeding by.

"Hey Mark!" said Tom like he did in concerts.

"Hey Mark! Hey Mark! Hey Mark!" said Mark, imitating Tom's voice with a laugh. "What the hell do you want!"

"I want you to turn on music!" said Tom.

"What kind of music?" asked Tom. They were still yelling, which really wasn't needed, but...okay then.

"Offspring music!" said Tom with a grin.

"You mean the band, or the music you play when - "

"THE BAND!" we all yelled before Mark could get any further into his question.

"Kay then!" he said, much like a teenage girl. He turned on the radio and the Greatest Hits album started playing.

Well, I don't care what anyone else thought. These were the best friends ever - even the two making out in the front seat, probably not going to stop. Or the one who was chair dancing to the Offspring. Or the one painting her nails in a moving vehicle. Or Tom, still singing that song.

I loved all of them.


End file.
